Austenitic oxide-dispersion-strengthened (ODS) stainless steel was fabricated using a wet mixing process without a mechanical milling in order to reduce contaminations of impurities during their fabrication process. Solution of yttrium nitrate was dried after a wet mixing with 316L stainless steel powder. Carbon and oxygen contents were effectively reduced by this wet processing. Microstructural analysis showed that coarse yttrium silicates of about 150 nm were formed in austenitic ODS steels with a silicon content of about 0.8 wt%. Wet-processed austenitic ODS steel without silicon showed higher yield strength by the presence of finer oxide of about 20 nm.

In order to investigate a nitriding process of spent oxide fuel and the subsequent change in thermal properties after nitriding, simulated spent fuel powder was converted into a nitride pellet with simulated fission product elements through a carbothermic reduction process. Nitriding rate of simulated spent fuel was decreased with increasing of the amount of fission products. Contents of Ba and Sr in simulated spent fuel were decreased after the carbothermic reduction process. The thermal conductivity of the nitride pellet was decreased by an addition of fission product element but was higher than that of the oxide fuel containing fission product elements.

The elastic moduli of simulated dry process fuels with varying composition and density were measured in order to analyze the mechanical properties of a dry process fuel pellet. Resonant ultrasound spectroscopy(RUS) which can determine all elastic moduli with one set of measurements for a rectangular parallelepiped sample was used to measure the elastic moduli of UO and simulated dry process fuel. The simulated dry process fuel showed a higher value of Young's modulus than UO due to the presence of metallic precipitates and solid solution elements in the UO matrix. The correlation between Young's modulus and porosity(P) of simulated dry process fuel was found to be 231.4-651.8 P (GPa) at room temperature. Dry process fuel with a higher burnup showed higher Young's modulus because total content of fission product element was increased.

The nano-scale crystallite sizes of uranium oxide powders in simulated spent fuel were measured by the neutron diffraction line broadening method in order to analyze the sintering behavior of the dry process fuel. The mixed and fission product powders were dry-milled in an attritor for 30, 60, and 120 min. The diffraction patterns of the powders were obtained by using the high resolution powder diffractometer in the HANARO research reactor. Diffraction line broadening due to crystallite size was measured using various techniques such as the Stokes' deconvolution, profile fitting methods using Cauchy function, Gaussian function, and Voigt function, and the Warren-Averbach method. The non-uniform strain, stacking fault and twin probability were measured using the information from the diffraction pattern. The realistic crystallite size could be obtained after separation of the contribution from the non-uniform strain, stacking fault and twin.

산소 결핍 페라이트 (oxygen deficient ferrites, ODF) MeFe2O4-δ는 약 300˚C의 낮은 온도에서 CO2를 C와 O2로 분해한다. 본 연구에서는 (Nix, Zn1-xFe24 초미세 페라이트 분말을 수열합성법으로 제조하여 CO2 분해특성을 살펴보았다. 제조된 페라이트는 XRD 분석 결과, 페라이트의 전형적인 스피넬 구조를 보여주고 있으며, ICP-AES, EDS 정량분석에 의하여 초기 혼합 조성비와 거의 동일한 조성비로 합성되었음을 알 수 있었다. 제조된 (Ni, Zn)-ferrites 분말의 BET 비표면적은 약 110mg2/g 이상의 큰 값으로 나타났으며, 입자크기는 약 5~10nm로 매우 작았다. 산소결핍 페라이트 (Nix, Zn1-x)Fe2O4-δ</TEX>의 CO2 분해 효율은 조성에 따라 큰 차이를 보이지 않았으며 3원계 (Ni, Zn)-ferrite가 Ni-ferrite보다 더 높았다.