Structural analysis of al alloys for nuclear fuel cladding

Abstract

Aluminum alloy of AG3NE were synthetized by casting method. The AG3NE application meant to be as nuclear fuel cladding candidate for nuclear research reactor that currently using the AlMg2. The AG3NE would apply for high density uranium nuclear fuel. Analysis for its structural properties were done by implementing the Williamson-Hall and size-strain plotting method, and the Rietveld analysis on the X-ray Diffraction profile data. The Williamson-Hall and size-strain plot were used to analysis the contribution of crystallite sizes and lattice strain occurs in Al alloys. The Rietveld analysis was used to showed the structural changes in Al phase. The analysis results showed that the AG3NE had lower crystallite size, microstrain and lattice parameter value compared to AlMg2. The crystallite size value for AG3NE and AlMg2 were 1.2130 nm and 3.7474 nm, respectively. The microstrain value for AG3NE and AlMg2 were 0.0076 and 0.0352, respectively. The lattice parameter value AG3NE and AlMg2 were 4.0558 Å and 4.0604 Å, respectively.