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UW-Madison: A Midwestern nucleus of fission and fusion
With more than six decades as a top-ranked program in its rearview, the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics (NEEP) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison is hardly slowing down. In fact, NEEP is continuing to grow and develop its faculty, curriculum, and research.
Etty Mutiara, Tri Yulianto, Maman Kartaman Ajiriyanto, Sugeng Rianto, Juan Carlos Sihotang, Hanif Ghufron, Praditya Vankabo
Nuclear Technology | Volume 212 | Number 9 | September 2026 | Pages 2338-2348
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2025.2514991
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The sintering behavior of monomodal particle size distribution (PSD) and trimodal PSD of UO2+x compacted pellets in 2% H2-N2 in CO2 and N2 atmosphere was studied. The monomodal PSD was in the range of 5 to 125 μm while the trimodal PSD was in the range of 2.75 to 837 μm. The reductive sintering process of uranium dioxide (UO2) compacted pellets was conducted in 2% H2-N2 atmosphere at 1700°C for 3 h. The CO2 and N2 atmosphere was used to accelerate the sintering process, allowing it to be conducted at a lower temperature than conventional reductive sintering. The oxidative sintering process needed to be followed by a process using reducing atmosphere to obtain near-stoichiometric UO2 pellets. The oxidative-reductive sintering process was carried out at 1200°C for 1 h of each atmosphere. CO2 and N2 were used as oxidative atmosphere. The results show that densification in CO2 and N2 atmosphere at 1200°C is considerably larger than 2% H2-N2 atmosphere at 1700°C. The highest density in reductive sintering and in oxidative-reductive sintering is obtained from monomodal PSD compacted UO2+x powder because of the smallest mean particle diameter and highest fraction of finer particles with a 2.34 oxygen-to-uranium (O/U) ratio. The density of sintered pellets in CO2-reductive atmosphere has a reverse trend with the N2-reductive sintered pellet density. The highest sintered pellet density in N2-reductive sintering was given by the highest finer fraction and smaller coarse fraction of trimodal PSD UO2+x compacted powder with a 2.49 O/U ratio. From this study, it is concluded that there is a combined effect between the PSD and the O/U ratio of UO2+x compacted powder in affecting the sintering behavior in each atmosphere.