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Two steps forward for U.K. advanced nuclear
This week, two significant announcements have emerged from the United Kingdom’s advanced reactor sector.
On June 14, Rolls-Royce, the United Kingdom National Nuclear Laboratory, and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency announced that they had signed two trilateral memorandums of cooperation to collaborate on “advanced modular reactor (AMR) technology, specifically high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGR), and the coated particle fuel these reactors will use.”
Separately, on June 16, Bellevue, Wash.–based TerraPower announced that its Natrium reactor design has been formally submitted for U.K. regulatory review. The company also announced the formation of a new subsidiary, TerraPower UK Ltd.
Karin Rudman, Patricia Dickerson, Darrin Byler, Robert McDonald, Harn Lim, Pedro Peralta, Chris Stanek, Kenneth McClellan
Nuclear Technology | Volume 182 | Number 2 | May 2013 | Pages 145-154
Technical Paper | Special Issue on the Symposium on Radiation Effects in Ceramic Oxide and Novel LWR Fuels / Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-A16426
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The oxygen content during the intermediate and final stages of sintering can have a strong effect on the microstructural evolution of oxide fuels. Two depleted urania (d-UO2.0 and d-UO2.14) samples, sintered up to a theoretical density of 90%, were serial sectioned using a focused ion beam and characterized with electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD). The EBSD data were used to make three-dimensional reconstructions of the microstructures to evaluate their characteristics at an intermediate stage of sintering. The oxygen content was found to affect grain shape and grain boundary (GB) mobility, as curved and elongated grains were observed in UO2.0, as well as stronger pore-GB interactions, which is an indication that microstructure was less evolved in UO2.0. Both samples presented a similar fraction ([approximate]20%) of special, coincident site lattice boundaries, with larger amounts of Σ3n GBs, and a rather large fraction of Σ11 GBs for UO2.14. Crystallographic GB planes were also determined to study the distributions of all GB parameters. The UO2.0 sample had a large fraction of GB planes close to the Σ3 twinning planes, which suggests that lower-energy interfaces are used to minimize energy in this sample, potentially due to lower overall GB mobility as compared to UO2.14.