Enhancing nuclear fuel efficiency through improved understanding of irradiation damage in zirconium cladding
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Manchester
Department Name: Materials
Abstract
This project focuses on energy and more specifically on nuclear fission. Core material such as fuel assemblies are exposed to irradiation from the moment a nuclear reactor is switched on. The bombardment of material with neutrons creates collision cascades that immediately produce point defects and dislocations in the material. This results in very significant changes of the material properties compared to non-irradiated material.Nuclear fuel for light water reactors is contained by so-called cladding tubes, which are made from zirconium alloys because of their excellent corrosion resistance, sufficient mechanical properties and their low neutron absorption coefficient. Nuclear fuel is enriched initially with 5% 235U. However, the fuel cannot be fully burned due to the uncertainty of clad material degradation and dimensional instability of fuel assemblies. The dimensional instabilities are related to irradiation growth and creep of zirconium alloys. Irradiation growth occurs in zirconium alloys without applying any external load and is due to the hexagonal close packed crystal structure of zirconium. Irradiation creep is significantly faster than thermal creep due to the increased density of vacancies in irradiated material. The safe operation of nuclear fuel assemblies requires dimensional stability to ensure sufficient coolant flow and the safe operation of control rods when needed. Irradiation growth and creep can lead to bowing and buckling of fuel assemblies, which is of concern with current plants and even more a concern for increased burnup of the nuclear fuel. Consequently, we need to develop a detailed understanding of the mechanisms leading to these phenomena and how they are affected by material chemistry and the microstructure evolution during irradiation.Traditionally, microstructure and damage characterisation of irradiated material is mainly carried out by electron microscopy. However, in the last decade, very powerful 3rd generation synchrotron radiation sources have been built, which represent a tremendous opportunity to develop complementary tools or quantitative characterisation of irradiation damage and microstructure evolution.During the 1960s and 70s many countries including the UK had test reactors that allowed scientists to undertake research on irradiated material. However, most of these test reactors are gone now and it is unlikely that the UK or other countries will build many new test reactors. For this reason, governments have invested in proton/ion accelerators to simulate neutron irradiation. The advantage of such facilities is that they are by many order of magnitudes cheaper to run than a test reactor. However, our understanding of how well neutron induced damage is related to proton/ion induced damage is limited. Since Zr alloys are relatively mildly active when irradiated by neutrons, they represent also an ideal material to calibrate proton/ion against neutron irradiation.During the fellowship my research group will:- identify the role of alloy chemistry and microstructure on irradiation growth and creep of fuel clad,- for the first time extensively use synchrotron radiation to characterise irradiation damage and- calibrate proton/ion irradiated against neutron irradiated cladding material in order to use the convenience of the former (non-active material, easily irradiated to different levels in a short time) to identify the route cause for loop formation resulting in breakaway growth
Planned Impact
Dimensional stability of cladding (i.e. irradiation growth and creep) as well as cladding corrosion and the associated hydrogen pickup are generally recognized as the major limitations on the lifetime (burnup) achievable from light water reactor fuel. Today, nuclear fuel, which goes into a nuclear reactor, will not be fully burned because it is not clear if the material that contains the fuel is robust enough to sustain such high burnup . Consequently the fuel manufacturers are interested to develop better fuel cladding. However, unless the role of alloy chemistry and microstructure on the mechanisms leading to dimensional instabilities are understood, the fuel manufacturers can only guess what kind of alloy development might lead to the desired improvement. The utilities, i.e. operators of nuclear power plants, have an interest to keep the fuel assemblies in a reactor for as long as possible since it will enable them to operate nuclear power stations in a more efficient way (fewer shut downs) and produce less nuclear waste. Regulators demand from the nuclear industry that they operate their reactors in a safe manner. Today, regulators increasingly expect utilities and fuel manufacturers to develop more physically based predictions, which are only possible if the mechanisms leading for example to irradiation growth and creep are understood. The exploitation plans set up by our project partners are clearly described in their support letters and are explained in detail in the Impact Plan. In summary, operating nuclear power stations in the most efficient and safe way while producing as little as possible of nuclear waste must be clearly in all our interest and consequently the society as a whole will benefit from this project. A second crucial aspect of this project is that it will train young people in an area where there is a severe shortage of expertise in the UK and globally. It cannot be emphasised enough that the understanding of material performance under irradiation is crucial and it is the nuclear industry, the regulators, national laboratories and academia that all require engineers and scientists that are educated to work in this environment. The project is designed that it studies the fundamentals of irradiation growth and creep. Consequently, the postgraduate students and research fellows will enjoy working on an intellectually challenging task while the nuclear industry will be eager to discuss their findings with them. To date, I have a 100% track record with students who have obtained a PhD on zirconium research now working in the nuclear industry. The strong support by my industrial project partners demonstrates that there is a clear avenue for disseminating findings to the nuclear industry. Quarterly progress meetings with all project partners and additional meetings with individual project partners will ensure that there is an excellent knowledge transfer in both ways. Our project partners also typically hold annual meetings with all their university partners. The project will operate within the framework of the Materials Performance Centre and the Dalton Nuclear Institute and it will be well linked with a range of new Manchester initiatives such as Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, the Centre for Nuclear Energy Technology, the Dalton Cumbria Facility and the National Nuclear Laboratory. Today, materials for Formula 1 and aeroengines are the most fascinating materials for prospective students. We need to gain the same fascination for nuclear materials and explain in what type of hostile environment they operate. I also plan to engage the public by working together with an artist to create artistic images of irradiation damage in material in order to communicate with a non-scientific community.
Organisations
- University of Manchester (Lead Research Organisation)
- National Nuclear Laboratory (Collaboration, Project Partner)
- AMEC (Collaboration)
- Rolls Royce Group Plc (Collaboration)
- Siemens AG (Collaboration)
- EDF Energy (United Kingdom) (Collaboration)
- Wood Group (Collaboration)
- Queen's University (Project Partner)
- Institute for Energy Technology (Project Partner)
- Westinghouse Electric (Sweden) (Project Partner)
- Électricité de France (France) (Project Partner)
- Rolls-Royce (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
- Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Project Partner)
- Diamond Light Source (Project Partner)
- Serco (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
- University of Michigan–Ann Arbor (Project Partner)
- Chalmers University of Technology (Project Partner)
- University of Oxford (Project Partner)
People |
ORCID iD |
| Michael Preuss (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Lunt D
(2021)
Understanding the role of local texture variation on slip activity in a two-phase titanium alloy
in Acta Materialia
Harte A
(2018)
Understanding irradiation-induced nanoprecipitation in zirconium alloys using parallel TEM and APT
in Journal of Nuclear Materials
Francis E
(2013)
Ultrahigh Resolution EDX Spectrum Imaging: Nuclear Materials Applications
in Microscopy and Microanalysis
Garner A
(2017)
The effect of substrate texture and oxidation temperature on oxide texture development in zirconium alloys
in Journal of Nuclear Materials
Harte A
(2020)
The effect of solid solution and gamma prime on the deformation modes in Ni-based superalloys
in Acta Materialia
Garner A
(2015)
The effect of Sn concentration on oxide texture and microstructure formation in zirconium alloys
in Acta Materialia
Fitzner A
(2016)
The effect of aluminium on twinning in binary alpha-titanium
in Acta Materialia
Harte A
(2018)
The characterisation of second phases in the Zr-Nb and Zr-Nb-Sn-Fe alloys: A critical review
in Journal of Nuclear Materials
Blackmur M
(2016)
Strain evolution during hydride precipitation in Zircaloy-4 observed with synchrotron X-ray diffraction
in Journal of Nuclear Materials
Polatidis E
(2013)
Residual stresses and tetragonal phase fraction characterisation of corrosion tested Zircaloy-4 using energy dispersive synchrotron X-ray diffraction
in Journal of Nuclear Materials
Lunt D
(2018)
Quantification of strain localisation in a bimodal two-phase titanium alloy
in Scripta Materialia
Platt P
(2015)
Observation of the effect of surface roughness on the oxidation of Zircaloy-4
in Corrosion Science
Babu R
(2016)
Nature of gallium focused ion beam induced phase transformation in 316L austenitic stainless steel
in Acta Materialia
Adrych-Brunning A
(2018)
Modelling the interaction of primary irradiation damage and precipitates: Implications for experimental irradiation of zirconium alloys
in Journal of Nuclear Materials
Lunt D
(2017)
Microscopic strain localisation in Ti-6Al-4V during uniaxial tensile loading
in Materials Science and Engineering: A
Prasitthipayong A
(2018)
Micro mechanical testing of candidate structural alloys for Gen-IV nuclear reactors
in Nuclear Materials and Energy
Topping M
(2018)
Investigating the thermal stability of irradiation-induced damage in a zirconium alloy with novel in situ techniques
in Acta Materialia
Ward J
(2019)
Influence of proton-irradiation temperature on the damage accumulation in Ti3SiC2 and Ti3AlC2
in Scripta Materialia
Zhang Z
(2017)
In-situ observation of hydrogen induced crack initiation in a nickel-based superalloy
in Scripta Materialia
Platt P
(2016)
In-situ digital image correlation for fracture analysis of oxides formed on zirconium alloys
in Corrosion Science
Hu J
(2015)
Identifying suboxide grains at the metal-oxide interface of a corroded Zr-1.0%Nb alloy using (S)TEM, transmission-EBSD and EELS.
in Micron (Oxford, England : 1993)
Ribárik G
(2019)
Global optimum of microstructure parameters in the CMWP line-profile-analysis method by combining Marquardt-Levenberg and Monte-Carlo procedures
in Journal of Materials Science & Technology
Platt P
(2014)
Finite element analysis of the tetragonal to monoclinic phase transformation during oxidation of zirconium alloys
in Journal of Nuclear Materials
Irukuvarghula S
(2017)
Evolution of grain boundary network topology in 316L austenitic stainless steel during powder hot isostatic pressing
in Acta Materialia
Seymour T
(2017)
Evolution of dislocation structure in neutron irradiated Zircaloy-2 studied by synchrotron x-ray diffraction peak profile analysis
in Acta Materialia
Lunt D
(2018)
Enabling high resolution strain mapping in zirconium alloys
in Materials Characterization
Idrees Y
(2015)
Effects of alloying elements on the formation of < c >-component loops in Zr alloy Excel under heavy ion irradiation
in Journal of Materials Research
Francis E
(2019)
Effect of Nb and Fe on damage evolution in a Zr-alloy during proton and neutron irradiation
in Acta Materialia
Lunt D
(2017)
Effect of nanoscale a2 precipitation on strain localisation in a two-phase Ti-alloy
in Acta Materialia
Zhang Z
(2019)
Dislocations in Grain Boundary Regions: The Origin of Heterogeneous Microstrains in Nanocrystalline Materials
in Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A
Ward J
(2018)
Crystallographic evolution of MAX phases in proton irradiating environments
in Journal of Nuclear Materials
Ward J
(2018)
Corrosion performance of Ti3SiC2, Ti3AlC2, Ti2AlC and Cr2AlC MAX phases in simulated primary water conditions
in Corrosion Science
Francis E
(2015)
Corrigendum to "Iron redistribution in a zirconium alloy after neutron and proton irradiation studied by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy using an aberration-corrected (scanning) transmission electron microscope" [J. Nucl. Mater. 454 (1-3) (2014) 387-397]
in Journal of Nuclear Materials
Lunt D
(2020)
Comparison of sub-grain scale digital image correlation calculated using commercial and open-source software packages
in Materials Characterization
Ungár T
(2021)
Characterizing dislocation loops in irradiated polycrystalline Zr alloys by X-ray line profile analysis of powder diffraction patterns with satellites
in Journal of Applied Crystallography
Thomas R
(2019)
Characterisation of irradiation enhanced strain localisation in a zirconium alloy
in Materialia
Hulme H
(2016)
An X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) study of the Sn L3 edge in zirconium alloy oxide films formed during autoclave corrosion
in Corrosion Science
Harte A
(2015)
Advances in synchrotron x-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy techniques for the investigation of microstructure evolution in proton- and neutron-irradiated zirconium alloys
in Journal of Materials Research
Garner A
(2014)
A method for accurate texture determination of thin oxide films by glancing-angle laboratory X-ray diffraction
in Journal of Applied Crystallography
Li K
(2019)
3D-characterization of deuterium distributions in zirconium oxide scale using high-resolution SIMS
in Applied Surface Science
| Description | - We have found evidence of irradiation-induced nano-precipitation minimising c-loop formation, and therefore irradiation growth. At the close of the project, we will be better able to summarise key findings. - We have been able to identify critical temperatures for irradiation damage to anneal out (become unstable). - We have developed experimental protocols for the use of x-ray diffraction line-profile analysis to determine dislocation loop density. - We have determined micro-segregation of alloying elements towards dislocation loops and other crystal defects. |
| Exploitation Route | - Our findings could influence future alloy development. - Our research provides experimental evidence than can be used in model development. - Our experimental findings provide information that can be used to predict life of cladding. |
| Sectors | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Energy |
| Description | In the initial project proposal, a key objective of this Fellowship was to, "build a world-class research group in the field of irradiation damage of Zr cladding, which is strongly supported by the nuclear industry ranging from fuel manufacturers to utilities". That this objective has been achieved is in evidence through the size of the group (now the largest Zr research group in the world), our high number of UK and international partners, the career destinations of our graduates to-date, and not least by Manchester's selection to host the 2019 ASTM Zr Symposium on behalf of the UK (not previously hosted here since 1978). In addition, the expertise developed in this project has enabled us to develop one of the 4 key challenges in MIDAS, our EPSRC programme grant. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2010 |
| Sector | Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Energy |
| Impact Types | Societal,Economic |
| Description | EDF - R&D |
| Amount | £120,000 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | contribution to MUZIC-2 |
| Organisation | EDF Energy |
| Department | EDF Innovation and Research |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | France |
| Start | 01/2013 |
| End | 12/2016 |
| Description | EDF - R&D |
| Amount | £120,000 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | contribution to MUZIC-2 |
| Organisation | EDF Energy |
| Department | EDF Innovation and Research |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | France |
| Start | 04/2013 |
| End | 09/2016 |
| Description | MIDAS - Mechanistic understanding of Irradiation Damage in fuel Assemblies |
| Amount | £7,226,655 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/S01702X/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 02/2019 |
| End | 01/2024 |
| Description | NIRAB |
| Amount | £6,000,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Government of the UK |
| Department | Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 06/2017 |
| End | 06/2019 |
| Description | Rolls-Royce Plc |
| Amount | £60,000 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | Top up funding for CDT PhD student |
| Organisation | Rolls Royce Group Plc |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | |
| Description | Rolls-Royce Plc |
| Amount | £30,000 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | top up funding for CDT advanced metallic systems studentship |
| Organisation | Rolls Royce Group Plc |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | |
| Description | Rolls-Royce Plc |
| Amount | £45,000 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | co-funding of DTA studentship |
| Organisation | Rolls Royce Group Plc |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | |
| Description | UK-India Civil Nuclear Collaboration Phase 3 |
| Amount | £491,287 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/M018105/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2016 |
| End | 08/2019 |
| Description | AMEC |
| Organisation | AMEC |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Contribution to R&D, trained future staff |
| Collaborator Contribution | funding of PhD students, autoclave testing |
| Impact | Phd students now working for AMEC, enhanced general understanding of their product |
| Description | EDF |
| Organisation | EDF Energy |
| Department | EDF Innovation and Research |
| Country | France |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Contribution to R&D knowledge. EDF (France) is using experimental data from fuel cladding materials research undertaken at Manchester to validate their modelling efforts. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Funding of PhD students and providing access to EDF facilities. Membership of advisory bodies (e.g. MIDAS Impact Monitoring Working Group). |
| Impact | Several EDF-sponsored PhD students now working for EDF/other organisations in related fields; provided improved understanding of their product. |
| Start Year | 2007 |
| Description | NNL |
| Organisation | National Nuclear Laboratory |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Contribution to R&D |
| Collaborator Contribution | funding of PhD student |
| Impact | training of staff and PhD students now working for NNL |
| Start Year | 2007 |
| Description | Rolls-Royce plc |
| Organisation | Rolls Royce Group Plc |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| Start Year | 2007 |
| Description | Westinghouse |
| Organisation | Siemens AG |
| Department | Siemens Westinghouse Power Corp |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | contribution to R&D knowledge |
| Collaborator Contribution | top up of PhD students, fully funded PhD students and materials including irradiated materials |
| Impact | Some of our PhD students now work for Westinghouse in Sweden and the USA. We also improved WH's understanding of their product. |
| Description | Wood plc |
| Organisation | Wood Group |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | informing and advising Wood |
| Collaborator Contribution | Direct and in-kind contribution. |
| Impact | Some of our PhD students now work for Wood |
| Start Year | 2015 |