气冷微堆碳化硅材料初级离位原子及损伤剂量研究

Research on Primary Knock-on Atom and DPA Calculation in SiC Fuel Clad of Micro Gas-cooled Reactor

  • 摘要: 气冷微堆是一种固有安全性非常高的可作为移动式微型核电装置的先进堆型,其燃料系统采用以碳化硅材料为基体的新型包覆颗粒弥散燃料。燃料在服役过程中将受到堆内中子辐照,产生离位损伤、辐照肿胀、元素嬗变等一系列辐照损伤,导致微结构发生变化进而影响材料各项性能。为研究堆芯碳化硅材料在服役期间受到的中子损伤程度,利用蒙特卡罗程序建立堆芯模型计算中子能谱,采用SPECTRA-PKA程序计算堆芯典型位置处碳化硅材料的原子平均离位。研究结果表明:堆芯中子辐照剂量最高处碳化硅的年辐照损伤低于1 dpa,损伤水平较低;弹性散射在中子辐照损伤产生中占主导地位,主要是由于低能中子能谱下其反应截面较大,此外非弹性散射与Si元素嬗变反应也有微量贡献。

     

    Abstract: The micro gas-cooled reactor is one kind of advanced movable micro nuclear power devices with very high inherent safety, which adopts a new type of dispersed multi-coated particle fuel mainly made of silicon carbide (SiC) in fuel system. As a fuel clad material, SiC plays an important role in transferring heat from fuel to coolant, restrains most of the radioactive fission products within its volume. During the lifetime of reactor, the fuel suffers from neutron irradiation, resulting in a series of radiation damage such as displacement damage, irradiation swelling and transmutation, which leads to permanent changes in microstructure and further affects the performance of the whole fuel system. In order to study the neutron-induced radiation damage of SiC-based material in the reactor core, a core model was established using Monte Carlo program, and the displacement per atom (DPA) of SiC material at typical positions in the core was calculated using SPECTRA-PKA code. The processing code SPECTRA-PKA produces all kinds of primary atomic recoil events for SiC material composition exposed to irradiation spectrum. The calculated result shows that the Si primary knock-on atom (PKA) contributes more radiation damage than the C PKA, and its contribution at the maximum, minimum and average dose level of neutron flux is 55.2%, 56.8% and 54.6%, respectively. The annual radiation damage of SiC with the maximum neutron irradiation dose in core is lower than 1 dpa. Elastic scattering plays a dominant role due to the high cross sections at low neutron energy. In addition, inelastic scattering also makes a small contribution. The additional recoils due to the subsequent decay of radionuclides produced by transmutation reactions were further considered using a self-developed neutron activation analysis code named NIAC. The result indicates that the transmutation elements are mainly produced by Si atoms. Compared to the armour materials of plasma facing materials in fusion reactor such as tungsten, the transmutation of SiC is insignificant. This is mainly attributed to two factors: first, the dose level of neutron flux in fusion reactor is much higher than that in micro gas-cooled reactor, and the average neutron energy of fusion reactor is much higher than that of fission reactor, which is easier to induce transmutation reaction of materials; second, the high-Z tungsten is more susceptible to transmutation, generating transmutation elements such as rhenium, osmium, tantalum and hafnium, resulting in changes in the chemical composition of the material. After 3 years irradiation, the PKA of transmutation elements in SiC only makes up about 0.01% of the total and contributes about 0.24% of the predicted DPA rate.

     

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