Summer Research Experience Poster Session 2022
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12588/1071
Held in-person on the UTSA campus on Thursday, July 28th from 2-3:30pm.
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Browsing Summer Research Experience Poster Session 2022 by Author "Montoya, Katherine"
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Item Fabrication of mini UB2 ingots via Arc melt synthesis using a customized copper hearth(2022-07-28) Facundo, Jesus, U; Montoya, Katherine; Kirtley, Thomas; Sooby, Elizabeth S.As growing efforts take place to enhance the operational safety of nuclear reactors, fuel composites have been explored as replacement to the traditionally used Uranium dioxide (UO2). One potential candidate that has been gaining momentum as a fuel composite additive is Uranium diboride. UB2 is known to have a higher uranium density and higher thermal conductivity than UO2, properties that would allow for a lower enrichment of the fuel pellets as well as improve the temperature gradient across the pellet during reactor operation. While various challenges arise when considering UB2 as a drop-in replacement to UO2, UB2 has shown much promise as a composite fuel when combined with other uranium compounds such as U3Si2.Through the use of an arc-melter system, 50-250 mg ingots of UB2 were fabricated using the fragments of a larger 2-5 g ingot of UB2. X-Ray diffraction analysis was performed to confirm the purity of the initial UB2 ingot. Further, an infrared camera was used to monitor the temperature of the furnace chamber during the mini-UB2 bead fabrication. The purpose of this project is to understand the fabrication process of UB2 and characterize the micro-structure of the as-fabricated mini fuel beads. We wish to better understand the viability of UB2 as a potential fuel composite additive.Item Identification of Pd-Si Compounds in Diffusion Couple Studies to Complement AGR PIE reports(2022-07-28) Stone, Jordan; Cavazos, Steven; Montoya, Katherine; Kirtley, Thomas; George, Gisele; Sooby, Elizabeth, S.Palladium (Pd) and silver (Ag) are known fission products of TRISO particle nuclear fuels [1]. Pd is known to corrode the silicon carbide (SiC) layer of a TRISO particle, which can compromise the overall fuel performance [2,3]. This study sets out to identify Pd-Si formations in SiC in order to better understand the corrosion of the SiC layer, and therefore the diffusion of Ag out of the TRISO layers found in AGR PIE reports. As of present, Pd has been observed to degrade SiC at 1000 °C; the extent of Pd diffusion and Pd-SiC compounds have yet to be determined.