Ceramography of irradiated TRISO fuel from the AGR-2 experiment

Destructive PIE and Safety Testing of Six AGR-2 UO₂ Capsule 3 Compacts

“…dense region connected to buffer dense region connected to buffer dense region connected to both Results from the survey of as-irradiated particles deconsolidated from AGR-2 UO2 Compacts 3-1-2 and 3-3-1 were consistent with a similar study of particles from AGR-2 UO2 Compact 3-2-3 (Rice, Stempien, and Demkowicz 2016). In that study, particles sufficiently revealed in polished sections taken from whole compacts were catalogued for the various common morphologies.…”

“…As discussed in Section 6, only one out of a sampling of 209 particles from AGR-2 Capsule 3 exhibited this behavior. That particle also showed complete separation between the IPyC and SiC in the plane of inspection (Rice, Stempien, and Demkowicz 2016). These two behaviors were likely related and suggest that the IPyC/SiC interface in the as-fabricated particle was abnormally weak.…”

“…Polished compact sections from Compact 3-2-3 were examined with emphasis on cataloging general structural changes in the kernel and buffer caused by kernel swelling, pore formation, and buffer densification, in which buffer densification almost always led to detachment of the bulk of the buffer from the inner pyrolytic carbon (IPyC) layer (Rice, Stempien, and Demkowicz 2016). The UO2 kernel pores appeared to be generally smaller and more evenly dispersed than in the UCO kernels.…”

A novel method to inspect coating thickness of tristructural isotropic fuel particles

“…William F. Skerjanc et al revealed that the reduced thickness of SiC layer would increase the probability of the failure of TRISO fuel particles . Currently, ceramography is the most widely used method to investigate such microstructures . Similarly, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis is also a destructive technique used widely to perform cross‐sectional analysis .…”

“…4 Currently, ceramography is the most widely used method to investigate such microstructures. 5,6 Similarly, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis is also a destructive technique used widely to perform cross-sectional analysis. [7][8][9] In terms of nondestructive inspection, X-ray phase-contrast imaging (PCI) is preferred over conventional X-ray imaging because it can image adjacent coating layers with sharp interfaces without sacrificing time in the examination of TRISO fuel particles.…”