Grain growth in U–7Mo alloy: A combined first-principles and phase field study

Grain size is an important factor in controlling the swelling behavior in irradiated U–Mo dispersion fuels. Increasing the grain size in U–Mo fuel particles by heat treatment is believed to delay the fuel swelling at high fission density. In this work, a multiscale simulation approach combining firs...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of nuclear materials 2016-05, Vol.473 (C), p.300-308
Main Authors: Mei, Zhi-Gang, Liang, Linyun, Kim, Yeon Soo, Wiencek, Tom, O'Hare, Edward, Yacout, Abdellatif M., Hofman, Gerard, Anitescu, Mihai
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Annealing
Computer simulation
Fuels
Grain boundaries
Grain growth
Grain size
Mathematical models
Swelling
Uranium base alloys
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Grain size is an important factor in controlling the swelling behavior in irradiated U–Mo dispersion fuels. Increasing the grain size in U–Mo fuel particles by heat treatment is believed to delay the fuel swelling at high fission density. In this work, a multiscale simulation approach combining first-principles calculation and phase field modeling is used to investigate the grain growth behavior in U–7Mo alloy. The density functional theory based first-principles calculations were used to predict the material properties of U–7Mo alloy. The obtained grain boundary energies were then adopted as an input parameter for mesoscale phase field simulations. The effects of annealing temperature, annealing time and initial grain structures of fuel particles on the grain growth in U–7Mo alloy were examined. The predicted grain growth rate compares well with the empirical correlation derived from experiments.
ISSN:0022-3115
1873-4820
DOI:10.1016/j.jnucmat.2016.01.027