Microstructure of TRISO Coated Particles from the AGR-1 Experiment I: SiC Grain Size and Grain Boundary Character

Pre-irradiation SiC microstructures in TRISO coated fuel particles from the AGR-1 experiment were quantitatively characterized using electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). From EBSD it was determined that only the cubic polymorph of as-deposited SiC was present and the SiC had a high fraction of CSL S3 grain boundaries. Additionally, the local area misorientation (LAM), which is a qualitative measurement of strain in the SiC lattice, was mapped for each fuel variant. The morphology of the SiC/IPyC interfaces were characterized by TEM following site-specific focused ion beam (FIB) specimen preparation. It was determined that the SiC layer had a heavily faulted microstructure typical of CVD deposited SiC and that the average grain diameter increased from the SiC/IPyC interface for all the fuel variants, except V3 that showed a constant grain size across the layer.