Estimates of the Effect of Bubble Size onnFuel Element Swelling

摘要

Fission gases are a source of swelling in irradiated fuel materials;in a mechanically strength less material only surface tension limits the amount of swelling. In such materials, the amount of swelling depends upon the operating temperature, fuel burnup, and the number of gas-filled bubbles per unit volume of material. Swelling is insensitive to the variety of sizes of the gas-filled bubbles, unless only a very small proportion of the bubbles have an extremely large diameter.