Study of the fuel/clad bonding of pressurized water reactors fuel rods

Durability and integrity of materials used in nuclear power plants is a continuous concern of the nuclear power plant owners and developers. During the fuel irradiation in pressurised water reactors (PWR), the whole fuel-clad assembly is subjected to several irradiation-induced modifications. In particular, the fuel element expansion concomitant to the cladding creeping, leads to the contacting of both materials, allowing the oxidation of the inner side of the clad, locally at first, then tending to affect the overall cladding inner surface. At high burnup, a bonding of the fuel periphery with the metallic cladding can be observed, forming the fuel-clad bonding phenomenon, which conditions the thermal transfers and the mechanical behaviour of the fuel rods. The main objective of this PhD, is to further the knowledge of the physic-chemical interaction between fuel and clad, by identifying especially the origin of their bonding and its evolution with burnup. For that purpose, studies on inter-diffusion couples were performed on model materials both under ionic irradiation and not, completing detailed characterisations of the fuel-clad interface of samples irradiated in PWR. Comparison of the results obtained on model materials with those obtained on samples irradiated in PWR, allows making reliable assumptions on the nature, the origin and the evolution of the fuel-clad bonding in PWR. (author)