ORCID

Abstract

Graphite is a key material in the design and operation of a wide range of nuclear reactors because of its attractive combination of thermal, mechanical, and neutron interaction properties. In all its applications, the microstructural evolution of nuclear graphite under operating conditions will strongly influence reactor lifetime and performance. However, measuring the 3D microstructural characteristics of nuclear graphite has traditionally faced many challenges. X-ray tomographic techniques face limitations in achievable resolution on bulk (mm-sized) specimens while serial sectioning techniques like FIB-SEM struggle to achieve adequate milling rates for tomographic imaging over representative volumes. To address these shortcomings, we present here a multiscale, targeted, correlative microstructural characterization workflow for nuclear graphite employing micro-scale and nano-scale x-ray microscopy with a connected laser milling step in between the two modalities. We present details of the microstructure, including porosity analysis, spanning orders of magnitude in feature size for nuclear graphite samples including IG-110.

Publication Date

2021-02-24

Event

150th Annual Meeting and Exhibition of The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, TMS 2021

Publication Title

TMS 2021 150th Annual Meeting and Exhibition Supplemental Proceedings

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH

ISBN

9783030652616

ISSN

2367-1181

Acceptance Date

2021-02-24

Deposit Date

2021-08-24

Embargo Period

2022-09-10

Keywords

Graphite, Multiscale, Porosity, X-ray tomography

First Page

553

Last Page

562

Download

Share

COinS