Laser ultrasonic assessment of the effects of porosity and microcracking on the elastic moduli of nuclear graphites

• Moduli of nuclear graphites measured using laser ultrasonic methods.
• Estimates made for the moduli of fully dense, polycrystalline, isotropic graphite.
• Models for modulus used to assess effects of microcracking on stiffness.
• Microcrack densities estimated using models for effect of microcracks on modulus.

Laser ultrasonic methods have been used to measure the elastic moduli of various nuclear graphites. Measurements were made to assess wavespeeds for longitudinal and shear waves in different propagation directions and these were used along with density measurements to compute the longitudinal and shear moduli as well as Young's modulus. All moduli decreased with increasing graphite porosity and these variations could be interpreted using models describing the effect of porosity on material stiffness. Extrapolations for these models to zero porosity were used to infer the moduli for theoretically dense graphite; the results were far below predicted values reported in the literature for fully dense, polycrystalline, isotropic graphite. Differences can be attributed to microcracking in the graphite microstructure. Using models for the effects of microcracking on modulus, estimates for microcrack populations indicate that the number of cracks per unit volume must be much greater than the number of pores per unit volume. Experimental results reported in the literature for irradiated graphites as well as for the stress dependence of graphite modulus are consistent with the influence of microcracking on elastic behavior and could be interpreted using concepts developed here. Results in this work for graphite structure-property relationships should allow for more sophisticated characterization of nuclear graphites using ultrasonic methods.