Development of an accident-tolerant fuel composite from uranium mononitride (UN) and uranium sesquisilicide (U3 Si2) with increased uranium loading

The processing steps necessary to prepare a potential accident-tolerant fuel composite consisting of uranium mononitride (UN) combined with uranium sesquisilicide (U3 Si2) are described. Liquid phase sintering was performed with U3 Si2 as the liquid phase combined with UN powder or UN μ-spheres. Various UN to U3 Si2 ratios were tested which resulted in up to 94% dense pellets. Composite UN-U3 Si2 samples had greater than 30% more uranium content than UO2.