Fabrication of uranium-americium mixed oxide fuels: thermodynamical modeling and materials properties

Fuel irradiation in pressurized water reactors lead to the formation of fission products and minor actinides (Np, Am, Cm) which can be transmuted in fast neutrons reactors. In this context, the aim of this work was to study the fabrication conditions of the U1-yAmyO2+x fuels which exhibit particular thermodynamical properties requiring an accurate monitoring of the oxygen potential during the sintering step. For this reason, a thermodynamical model was developed to assess the optimum sintering conditions for these materials. From these calculations, U1-yAmyO2+x (y=0.10; 0.15; 0.20; 0.30) were sintered in two range of atmosphere. In hyper-stoichiometric conditions at low temperature, porous and multiphasic compounds are obtained whereas in reducing conditions at high temperature materials are dense and monophasic. XAFS analyses were performed in order to obtain additional experimental data for the thermodynamical modeling refinement. These characterizations also showed the reduction of Am(+IV) to Am(+III) and the partial oxidation of U(+IV) to U(+V) due to a charge compensation mechanism occurring during the sintering. Finally, taking into account the high - activity of Am, self-irradiation effects were studied for two types of microstructures and two Am contents (10 and 15%). For each composition, a lattice parameter increase was observed without structural change coupled with a macroscopic swelling of the pellet diameter up to 1.2% for the dense compounds and 0.6% for the tailored porosity materials. (author)