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Grain Boundary and Lattice Fracture Toughness of UO2 Measured Using Small-Scale Mechanics

  • In-Situ Characterization Techniques for Investigating Nuclear Materials
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Abstract

Small-scale mechanical testing has been used to isolate the properties of individual grain boundaries and regions of the lattice in undoped UO2 polycrystals. Notched microcantilever specimens were prepared by focused ion beam milling and tested in bending. Fracture toughness values were calculated from finite element analysis of the sample geometry at fracture load using the J-integral method. Lattice and grain boundary fracture toughness values of 1.17 ± 0.16 MPa m1/2 and 1.08 ± 0.08 MPa m1/2, respectively, were obtained. The similarity between the lattice and grain boundary fracture toughness values is consistent with the preference for transgranular room-temperature fracture in UO2. The grain boundary and lattice fracture toughness values also agree well with the toughness of dense polycrystals, which suggests that microstructural-scale toughening mechanisms are limited in such samples.

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Acknowledgements

The work presented in this paper was supported by the Advanced Fuels Campaign of the Nuclear Technology Research and Development program in the Office of Nuclear Energy, US Department of Energy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai, China

    Lin Feng

  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA

    Lin Feng & Shen J. Dillon

  3. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA

    Sarah C. Finkeldei & Andrew T. Nelson

  4. Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA

    Brent Heuser

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  1. Lin Feng
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  2. Sarah C. Finkeldei
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Correspondence to Shen J. Dillon.

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Feng, L., Finkeldei, S.C., Heuser, B. et al. Grain Boundary and Lattice Fracture Toughness of UO2 Measured Using Small-Scale Mechanics. JOM 72, 2075–2081 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11837-020-04118-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11837-020-04118-3

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