Faculty of Science

Nuclear materials: introduction

and fundamentals of materials
Filip Tuomisto
Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, Finland

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 THIS WEEK

1. Monday: Introduction to (nuclear) materials. Basics of crystal structure

2. Tuesday: Fundamentals of crystal lattices, X-ray diffraction

3. Wednesday: Defects in solids

4. Thursday: Radiation damage, part 1

5. Friday: Radiation damage, part 2

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 TODAY’S TOPICS

Materials in NPPs
What should be considered?
What are materials?
Atomic view: bonds
Atomic view: crystals

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 WHAT MATERIALS CAN WE FIND IN NUCLEAR
POWER PLANTS?
• Metal alloys cadmium, boron carbide)
• Concrete • Beryllium oxide (reflector)
• Uranium oxide • Burnable absobers (metal oxides)
• Zirconium • Carbon (control rods)
• Stainless steel • Copper
• Boron
• Plastic
• Water
• Organic compounds
• Carbon steel
• Control rod metals (silver, indium,

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 ”NUCLEAR MATERIALS”

Typically, with ”nuclear materials” the following are meant:

• Pressure boundary components generally made of steels, stainless steels and Ni-
based alloys (2nd barrier)
• Pressure vessel (steam generator and pressuriser), primary circuit components, valves,
steam generator tubing, bolts and fasteners, sealings, welds
• Fuel components (1st barrier)
• The fuel itself (oxide), cladding (metal alloys), internals (metal alloys)
• Others
• Concrete (3rd barrier)
• Sometimes electrical components

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 MATERIALS DESIGN CRITERIA: STRUCTURAL
INTEGRITY!

• Manufacturing, especially for large components

• Formability, weldability
• Fatigue endurance
• Degradation mechanism tolerance
• Stress corrosion cracking, flow assisted corrosion…
• Thermal stability (as good as possible)
• Irradiation resistance and low activation (e.g. very low Co-content in stainless steels)
• Inspectability
• Experience from manufacturing and use

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EXAMPLES OF STRUCTURAL MATERIALS

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PWR MATERIALS

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BWR MATERIALS

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 COMMON ISSUES

• Strength and ductility

• Manufacturing and heat treatment, weldability
• Irradiation resistance (neutrons!)
• Thermal stability
• Optimization of microstructure (different for different needs)
• Corrosion resistance
• Also in combination with irradiation
• Conditions of use extremely extreme!
• Simultaneous thermal, mechanical, chemical and irradiation loads (degradation)!

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SCALE OF ISSUES

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 MATERIALS ARE MADE OF ATOMS!

• Simple idea: all the properties of materials

are dictated by the identities and spatial
positions of atoms
• Complication: the number of atoms (~1023
in a cubic centimeter…)
• Luckily, many of the materials of interest
in nuclear are crystalline!
• Periodic arrangement of atoms
• Simplifies the physics (theoretical
framework)
• Many properties dictated by the periodicity!

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 BASICS

Bonds between atoms:

General things
Ionic bond, covalent bond, metallic bond, hydrogen bond, Van der Waals bond
Where do these lead?
Crystal lattice:
Bravais lattice, unit cell, basis
Lattice structures (crystal structures)
Miller indices
What else is there than crystals?

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 ATOMS IN SOLIDS

• In principle one should look at both energy and entropy (but then you need to
remember to consider the WHOLE system)
• We focus on energy
‒ Matter can go from gas to liquid and then to solid, if the entropy of the whole system
(universe) inceases: the total energy of a liquid is less than of a gas (the transition is
exothermic), same goes for solid vs. liquid
• Bonds between atoms: electrons
‒ Only the outermost electronic shells participate in the bonding!
• Fundamental concept
• Reduction of the total energy stabilizes the solid
• The energy gained is larger than that required to move an electron from a shell level
to a bond level!
‒ The difference defines the bond strength

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ATOMIC INTERACTION

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 IONIC BOND

Electronic
Positive and negative ions (groups I and VII, e.g. Na+ and Cl−) wavefunctions
don’t overlap!

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 COVALENT BOND
molecule

Electronic wavefunctions overlap!

Directional bonds, p and d electrons!

sp3 hybridization:
typical of group IV
semiconductors (C,
Si, ...), also III-V, II-VI

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COVALENT BOND, PART II

sp2 hybridization:
typical of carbon!

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METALLIC BOND ions

valence electron density

Mainly groups I – III

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 METALLIC BOND, PART II

So-called simple metals:

bonds not directional (s electrons dictate)
Transition metals:
Partially directional bonds due to partially localized d electrons

• In metals the atoms (ions) are closely packed!

− This allows maximising the overlap between the
outermost electron wavefunctions and the ”flattest
possible” potential landscape that minimizes the
energy

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 HYDROGEN BOND, VAN DER WAALS

• Also molecular solids exist (less periodic systems)

• ice
• Polymers (”plastic”)
• soft condensed matter
• Bonds between molecules?
• Hydrogen bond: interaction between constant dipoles (ice, DNA)
• Van der Waals: momentaneous dipoles due to fluctuations that leads to
attraction
• Proportional to r−6 (compare to r−2 Coulomb)

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 WHAT DID WE LEARN ON BONDS?

• Quick overview of ionic, covalent, metallic and weak bonds

• In practice mixtures / in between type of bonds
• ionic vs. covalent
• covalent vs. metallic

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 CRYSTAL LATTICE: WHAT IS IT?

• Solid matter that consists of small identical

periodically repeating parts (unit cells)
• Usually observable also on macroscopic scale
• Small total energy!
• The symmetry simplifies solving the Schrödinger
equation!

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 BRAVAIS LATTICE: 2D

A Bravais lattice is a point lattice defined by Rm n  ma1  na 2

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BRAVAIS LATTICE: 3D
Rm no  ma1  na 2  oa 3

There are 5 (2D) and 14 (3D)

different Bravais lattices

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UNIT CELL, PRIMITIVE UNIT CELL

a2

a1

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BASIS
• Can all the crystals be described by putting the atoms
in a Bravais lattice?
– No, but using a multi-atom basis to each point of a Bravais
lattice you can!
• symmetry!

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MILLER INDICES (NAMING OF
LATTICE PLANES)
In principle: coordinate description of a vector
perpendicular to tha plane
Can be determined also in the following way:
1. Determine crossing points: (2,1,2)
2. Take reciprocal numbers: (½, 1, ½)
3. Transform to integers: (1, 2, 1)

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 (CRYSTAL) LATTICE STRUCTURES
• What are real crystals like?
• Packing of ”hard” balls: try to fill space as efficiently as possible to minimize
the energy
• Noble gases, metals (no directional bonds)
• The simple cubic lattice is a Bravais lattice

But: the simple cubic lattice is not

particularly efficient, as anyone
a1 a2 piling tangerines on a table has
Rm no  ma1  na 2  oa 3 noticed: the filling fraction is only
52 %
a3 F, O, Po

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 CLOSE-PACKED STRUCTURES

hcp: 74 %
not Bravais!
bcc: 68 % fcc: 74 %

bcc and fcc are cubic Bravais lattices, but the lattice vectors are not the
sides of a cube! (a cubic unit cell contains more than one atom)

bcc: 10, hcp :36, fcc: 24

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LATTICE STRUCTURES PART III

Close packing of
ionic crystals:

Covalent bonds directional: close

packing not as important (diamond
lattice: 34%, fcc + 2-atom basis)

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 BEYOND CRYSTALS?

• In reality the majority of solids are polycrystalline in one way or another

• Still, most of the atoms far away from grain boundaries
• However, the ”microstructure” of these grain is important for many properties!
• Amorphous materials:
• No long range order!
• On short range, the atomic positions not necessarily that different from crystals
• Molecular materials, polymers
• ”spaghetti”...
• Short range order (molecular scale), no long range order

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 WHAT DID WE LEARN ON LATTICES?

• Definitions
• Bravais lattice, basis
• Unit cell
• Miller indices indeksit
• Typical structures
• Elements: bcc, fcc, hcp
• Ionic compounds: NaCl, CsCl
• Covalent-like bonds: diamond, zinc blende, wurtzite
• Symmetries!

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