A study on the mechanically equivalent surrogate plate of U-Mo dispersion fuel using tungsten

When a new fuel is developed, various mechanical properties are absolutely necessary for a safety analysis of the fuel for the licensing and prediction of its mechanical behavior during operation and accident conditions. In this paper, a mechanically equivalent surrogate plate of U-Mo dispersion fuel is presented using tungsten, substitute material of U-Mo particle. A surrogate plate, composed of tungsten/aluminum dispersion meat and aluminum alloy cladding, is manufactured with the same fabrication process with that of fuel plate except that a tungsten powder is used instead of U-Mo powder. A modal test showed that the surrogate plate and fuel plate have similar dynamic characteristics, and a tensile test demonstrated the similarity of the material property up to the yield strength range. The conducted tests proved that the surrogate tungsten plate has equivalent mechanical behaviors with that of a fuel plate, which leads to the acceptable use of a surrogate fuel assembly using tungsten/aluminum dispersion meat in various mechanical tests. The surrogate fuel assembly can be utilized for various out-of-pile characteristic tests, which are necessary for the licensing achievement of a research reactor that uses U-Mo dispersion fuel as a driver.