MAX phase carbides and nitrides: Properties for future nuclear power plant in-core applications and neutron transmutation analysis

By E. Hoffman, D. Vinson, R. Sindelar, Darin J. Tallman, G. Kohse, Michel W. Barsoum. 2012

252 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract A family of ternary carbides and nitrides, known as MAX phases, combine attractive properties of both ceramics and metals, and has been suggested for potential nuclear reactor applications. The unirradiated materials properties of importance for in-core structural materials and as fuel pellet coatings for several leading MAX phase materials have been summarized from literature. The materials show high mechanical damage tolerance in terms of creep, thermal/mechanical fatigue and fracture resistance, and very good chemical compatibility with select coolants such as molten lead and sodium. Neutron activation has been calculated for commercial purity materials exposed to both idealized fast and thermal reactor neutron spectra for 10, 30, and 60 years of exposure. The specific activities of Ti 3 SiC 2 , Ti 3 AlC 2 , and Ti 2 AlC were compared to those of SiC and Alloy 617, two leading candidate materials for next generation reactor components. The specific activities of MAX phases were similar to SiC and three orders of magnitude less than Alloy 617 after 10–60 years decay for all three activation times in both the fast and thermal spectra. As with SiC, the main radioisotopes after a decay period of 10 years for all three activation times in the MAX phases are tritium and C 14 . Neutron irradiation results of Ti 3 SiC 2 , Ti 3 AlC 2 , and Ti 2 AlC experimentally confirmed the neutron transmutation analysis.

Subfields: Ceramics and Composites, Materials Chemistry, Mechanical Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/217b43dd4812462e1b279e7bd98f361d650a6d8b

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ceramics and Composites

1. P. Eklund
2. Michel W. Barsoum

In Materials Chemistry

1. J. Rosen
2. Michel W. Barsoum
3. Yury Gogotsi
4. J. Halim
5. P. Eklund
6. Jun Lu
7. L. Hultman
8. E. Caspi

In Mechanical Engineering

1. L. Hultman
2. J. Rosen
3. P. Eklund
4. Jun Lu
5. J. Halim
6. Michel W. Barsoum
7. Darin J. Tallman
8. Yury Gogotsi

Citations in the corpus

• Synthesis of the new MAX phase Zr2AlC (2016, background): “Apart from this economical argument, the fuel cladding materials of next generation (Gen-III+) light water reactors (LWRs) must withstand severe operating conditions where mechanical and thermal loads are combined with high neutron irradiation doses and strongly oxidative or corrosive environments [”
• Effect of neutron irradiation on select MAX phases (2015, background): “have shown that neutron activation of Ti3SiC2, Ti3AlC2 and Ti2AlC compare well to SiC and are three orders of magnitude lower than alloy 617, two candidate materials for use in next generation reactors [26].”