An experimental study of grain growth in mixed oxide samples with various microstructures and plutonium concentrations

Samples of (U, Pu)O2 Mixed Oxide (MOX) with various microstructure and plutonium contents ranging between 4% and 25% have been submitted to a series of heat treatments in order to assess grain growth between 1350 and 1750 °C. XRD measurements on the samples indicated that they were not affected by modifications in the oxygen-to-metal ratio during annealing. The grain size distributions inferred by means of image analysis of metallographic pictures reveal that, when taking into account the experimental uncertainties, the grain growth kinetics are similar to those observed in conventional UO2 fuel that was also tested under the same conditions. An analysis of experimental data available in the open literature for both UO2 and MOX fuel leads to the same conclusion. It is therefore suggested that grain growth models for UO2 fuel can be applied to MOX fuel for fuel performance simulations, when taking into consideration the uncertainties pertaining to grain growth measurements.