R&D on nitride fuel cycle for MA transmutation to enhance safety and economy, 4; Correlation of milling condition and sintered density of nitride fuel surrogate material

Takaki, Seiya  ; Harada, Makoto; Takano, Masahide 

It is necessary to control the pellet densities for the purpose of securing margin against swelling for nitride fuel for transmutation of minor actinide. Appropriate polymer particles will be applied as a pore former in order to decrease the density. This study aimed to investigate the influence of various milling parameters on the densities of sintered DyZrN solid solution as surrogate nitride fuel in order to obtain fundamental knowledge for controlling sintered density with pore former. The sintered pellet densities are studied under various milling condition. The measurement of specific surface area clarifies that finer powder can be obtained with WC. However, the achieved densities of the sintered pellets show that the denser pellets can be obtained with SiN in spite of the smaller specific surface area.