MIKROSTRUKTUR DAN KOMPOSISI FASA PELET SINTER UO2 DENGAN PENAMBAHAN DOPAN LOGAM ZIRKONIUM
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17146/urania.2018.24.1.3941Keywords:
UO2 pellet, Zr, PWR, Microstructure, PhaseAbstract
Characterization of zirconium-doped UO2 pellet for PWR fuel has been done. The investigation aims to study the influence of zirconium doping on microstructure, phase composition and stoichiometric (O/U) ratio. Homogenous distribution of zirconium metal is expected in order to enhance UO2 pellet quality. The UO2 pellet was fabricated by compaction and sintering with varied zirconium addition of 0.3, 0.5 and 0.9 wt%. Sintering was done at 1700 °C with heating rate of 250 °C/hour for 3 hours in hydrogen medium. Characterization of the sintered pellet includes visual examination, density measurement, microstructure examination with optical microscope at 500x magnification and phase analysis by X-ray diffraction (XRD) method. Analysis results show that the addition of varied Zr of 0.3, 0.5 and 0.9 wt% did not cause defect or crack of the sintered UO2 pellet. Microstructure examination with optical microscope, however, could not visually confirm the existence of zirconium. The evaluation of XRD data was done with HighScore software by conforming peaks data of the test sample with peaks data of a reference database. The phase of UO2 pellet without zirconium addition was confirmed to be UO2 and UO3. The phase of UO2 pellet with zirconium addition, on the other hand, shows that the UO3 fraction increases linearly with the percentage of zirconium added, which is indicated by the value of stoichiometric (O/U) ratio.
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