A pathway to Fully Ceramic Microencapsulated (FCM™) fuel pellets showing absence of sintering-derived fuel “rupture” has been demonstrated. In the typical FCM manufacturing process, TRistructral ISOtropic (TRISO) particles display statistically significant rupture events. Rupture is caused by contact of particles during the axial shrinkage of fuel pellet that accompanies the pressure-assisted sintering process. To solve this, template SiC powder discs were fabricated to host planes of TRISO particles, and the disks are stacked to form a cylindrical “green” pellet. After sintering, it showed that up to ∼34% packing fraction of particles (Vp) is feasible without contact between planes. Sintering was shown to reduce the axial displacement between planes of TRISO, and XCT showed planes separated by a displacement of ∼100 μm. XCT, optical microscopy and SEM showed the very limited radial displacement of particles. However, the relative density of the FCM pellet was limited to ∼95%. The current results support this zero-rupture concept as viable, but perturbations to TRISO arrangements and limited matrix density require further effort, in order to improve FCM fuel performance.

已经证明了获得完全陶瓷微囊化（FCM™）燃料颗粒的途径，该途径显示出不存在源自烧结的燃料“破裂”。在典型的FCM制造过程中，TRistrial isotropic（TRISO）颗粒显示出统计上显着的破裂事件。破裂是由于在燃料颗粒的轴向收缩过程中伴随压力辅助烧结过程中的颗粒接触而引起的。为了解决这个问题，将模板SiC粉末圆盘制作到TRISO颗粒的主体平面，然后将圆盘堆叠以形成圆柱形“绿色”粒料。烧结后，表明在不接触平面的情况下，高达约34％的颗粒堆积率（Vp）是可行的。结果表明，烧结可以减少TRISO平面之间的轴向位移，XCT显示，平面之间的位移约为100μm。XCT，光学显微镜和SEM显示颗粒的径向位移非常有限。但是，FCM颗粒的相对密度被限制在约95％。目前的结果支持该零破裂概念是可行的，但是对TRISO布置的干扰和有限的基体密度需要进一步的努力，以改善FCM燃料性能。