Challenges in developing materials for microreactors: A case-study of yttrium dihydride in extreme conditions
The advancement of microreactor technology is crucial for providing portable electricity, essential for both human space exploration and remote terrestrial regions. Miniaturizing nuclear reactors presents new challenges for materials science, particularly in controlling nuclear reactions through neutron thermalization in compact geometries. Transition metal hydrides, renowned for their robust nuclear moderation capability, are currently under development […]
Phase transformations and thermal expansion coefficients of unirradiated U-X wt.% Zr (X = 6, 10, 20, 30) measured via neutron diffraction
This work characterizes the crystallographic evolution of unirradiated U-X wt.% Zr (X = 6, 10, 20, 30) while cooling from equilibration, single phase ?-U-Zr, at 900 °C to ambient temperature using time-of-flight neutron diffraction. The ß-U phase was unobserved during cooling at 1 °C/min in all alloys. All alloys followed the phase transformation pathway of […]