Annual Report
1VWNX5I
1VWNX5I
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Research<br />
CNE academics perform internationally-leading research in a number<br />
of fields. This section summarises our research in five theme<br />
areas: Fuel Design and Performance; Reactor Operation, Design<br />
and Monitoring; Spent Fuel and Waste Management; Repository<br />
Science and Engineering and Nuclear Policy, Safety, Security &<br />
Regulation.<br />
Fuel Design and Performance<br />
CNE research in the fuel area covers both<br />
performance and degradation mechanisms<br />
of current ceramic PWR fuels and<br />
metal cladding systems and development<br />
of accident tolerant fuels new fuel<br />
systems for Generation IV reactors.<br />
PDRA Projects<br />
MAX Phases for Accident-Tolerant Fuels<br />
Researcher: Dr Denis Horlait<br />
Supervisor: Prof Bill Lee<br />
Sponsor: EPSRC through XMat and CAFFE programme grants<br />
A loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) leads to temperature<br />
building-up in the reactor core, leading<br />
to a chain reaction between steam and the<br />
Zr-based alloy constituting fuel cladding. This<br />
reaction between H2O and Zr produces massive<br />
amount of H2 and associated explosion risks.<br />
Recent Fukushima events for which this scenario<br />
happened had led to increase R&D efforts for<br />
the “Accident Tolerant Fuel” (ATF) concept. The<br />
ATF goal is to develop clad and fuels that can<br />
prevent or at least postpone such events.<br />
For cladding, some ternary layered carbides<br />
belonging to the “MAX phases” family display<br />
interesting characteristics, such as irradiation,<br />
thermal shock and high-temperature oxidation<br />
resistance (notably for the Al-based ones). One<br />
of these carbides could thus possibly be used<br />
as an external protective coating for the Zr cladding.<br />
The global aim of this project was thus to prospect<br />
for MAX phases materials for ATF. This was<br />
done by selecting promising composition then<br />
attempting to synthesize them and finally testing<br />
their oxidation resistance above 1200°C.<br />
The research focused on Zr2AlC and derived<br />
compositions, (Cr,Ti)n+1AlCn, and pre-oxidised<br />
Ti3SiC2. If the latter subject was a dead-end,<br />
the work on Zr2AlC derived compositions led to<br />
the synthesis of several new quaternary MAX<br />
phases, some even including new elements in<br />
the MAX phases family (Sb and Bi), while the<br />
research on the Cr-Ti-Al-C system evidenced the<br />
possible reinforcement of oxidation resistance<br />
of MAX phases by the deliberate addition of Al-<br />
Cr alloys.<br />
Centre for Nuclear Engineering <strong>Annual</strong> <strong>Report</strong> 2014-2016 32
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