A new characterization approach for studying relationships between microstructure and creep damage mechanisms of uranium dioxide

These first results clearly illustrate the benefit of systematic examinations of crept UO2 pellets at a mesoscopic scale, by SEM and EBSD, to study their deformation process. In addition, ECCI appears as a powerful tool to evidence local dislocations arrangements, in bulk samples. Even if the sampling was limited, the results of this study also tend to indicate that the intra-granular pores population, resulting from the manufacturing of the samples by powder metallurgy, could have a significant influence on the UO2 viscoplastic deformation mechanisms.