Chapter 2 - Crystal Structure Flashcards
What does manufacturability depend on?
Crystal structure
Why do we use Zircaloy as fuel cladding?
Because of limited swelling due to underlying crystal lattice structure
What are metallic glasses?
metals without a crystal structure
What is the unit cell?
The smalles unit translation of space lattice that reproduces a macroscopic crystal
What are cubic crystals characterized by?
The number of lattice sites per unit cell
What are close packed planes?
The planes containing the highest atom density
What are close packed directions?
direction of smalles atomic separation
How do we determine the crystal strucutre?
X-ray spectroscopy
How do we specify planes and indices?
With millers notations
What crystalline structure is circonium?
HPC
What are ionic solids?
solids formed from electro-negative and -positive elements (cations and anions).
Name some examples of ionic solids in nuclear?
UO2 B4C
How are ionic solids sub-lattices represented?
mixture of simple lattices formed by the elements
What is the usual structure for MX solids?
The NaCl and the CsCl structure
What is the usual structure for MX2 solids?
box withing box
What are point deffects?
- Vacancy
- SIA
- Interstitial Solute
- Subtitutional Solute
Name the three type of mixed crystals?
substitutional random
substitutional ordered
interstitial
What determines solid solution or precipitation?
The hume rothery rules
What are the hume rothery rules?
Atom radius not more than 15%
Similar crystal structure
Small electro negativity difference
Number of valence electrons should be similar
What is the electronegativity?
Chemical potential of an element. It describes the tendency of a material to attract electrons.
What is the principal product of neutron irradiation of the structural metals in LWR?
highly non-equilibrium concentrations of vacancies and self-interstitials in equal numbers
What is the effect of a vacancy in the nearby atoms?
Attractive force of neighboring atoms into vacancy creates a tensile stress (strain) field which is elastic isotropic.
What is the equilibrium vacancy fraction a function of (#/atom sites)?
The gibs free energy of vacancies and the temperature. X = exp(-G/RT)
What does the gibs free energy of vacancies depends on?
Entropy, temperature and enthalpy. G=H-TS=E+pV-TS
What does the enthalpy depend on?
H depends on the energy of the vacancy, the pressure and the volume of the vacancy, H=E+pV
What is the energy of the vacancy?
E=Ne where N is the number of vacancies and e is the formation energy of single vacancy (1.5 +- 0.5eV)
What is the entropy dependant on?
The entropy is dependent on the number of vacancies and the vibrational entropy (0.5-3k)
Is there an alternate way of determining the equilibrium point defect concentrations?
Yes, by calculating the equilibrium constant Kv
What is the equilibrium constant for vacancies?
K = conc. of vacancies/conc. of sites
What are the three main mechanisms by which vacancies increase?
- Quenching
- Deformation
- Irradiation
- Temperature Increase
What test other than mechanical property tests exists to verify the increase in vacancy concentration?
Electrical resistivity which increases due to increased vacancy concentration
What are frenkel pairs?
a vacancy and a interstitial atom/ion
What are the recovery stages for irradiated metals with high vacancy concentration as the temperature is increased?
- Frenkel pairs collapse (recombination of vacancy and SIA)
- Interstitial clusters grow leading to small interstitial loops
- Vacancie migration and adualte at interstitial clusters
- the vacancy cluster surviving stage 3 grow in size and dissociate thermally.
How can you measure vacancies using positrons?
Since vacancies have lower electrond ensity positrons are traped for longer times and are therefore a mesure of vacancy density. In other sites vacancy and electron annihilate and gammas are emitted. No gammas are observed in high vacancy regions.
What should point defects in ionic crystals mantain?
local electrical neutrality
What is Schottky Defect
missing anion and cation
What is cation frenkel pair?
a cation site vacancy and a cation interstitial
What is anion frenkel pair?
a anion site vacancy and an anion interstitial
What are the 0 dimension al defects?
point defects (vacancies, interstitials, frankel pairs, shottkey defect, etc.)
What are 1 dimensional defects?
dislocations
What are 2 dimensional defects?
grain boundaries, interfaces, etc
What are 3d defects?
precipitates, pores, particles, inclusions, etc
Why do materials deform before theoretical stress is reached?
Because theory assumes all atomic bounds are moved at the same time which is not true.
How can you visualize dislocations?
With TEM since the crystal around a dislocation etches quicker than bulk
What does dislocations cause or lead to?
Introducing dislocaitons lead to a shape change of the crystal leading to elastic stress in the lattice
What is the poisson ratio?
the ratio of the fraction (or percent) of expansion divided by the fraction (or percent) of compression, for small values of these changes. Or describes the phenomena that a compressed material in one direction elongates in the other direction
What two phenomena do dislocations host and where?
Compression in the dislocations ide and tension in the normal part.
Can dislocations interact with dislocations? if so how?
Yes, dislocation annihilation is possible. The compression side attracs tension sides and can merge to “fix” dislocation.
How does the number of grains vary with respect to the crystal seeds?
few seed crystals lead to bigger and fewer grains and viceversa
What is the close packed plane?
Plane containing the highest atom density
What is the close packed directions?
the direction of smallest atomic serapation
What notation is it used to specify crystallographic planes and indices
miller notation
How are ionic sub-lattices usually represented?
a mixture of simple lattices formed by the elements.
What is the difference between a LWR and FR?
The energy spectrum of the neutron flux.
Why do we care about the energy spectrum of the reactor?
More energy means more radiation damage therefore it can cause reduced lifetime in traditional materials
What is the average neutron energy of a fast neutron?
0.5 MeV
What crystal structure does UO2 have?
cubic (fluorite)
What determines if an element stays in solid solutions?
The hume rothery rules
What is the energy per atom of a dislocation
7 eV
What is a schottky defect?
when a cation and anion leave the lattice site and create pair of vacancy defects.
What are the effects of schottky defect on electrical neutrality and density?
Electrical neutralitiy is still mantained but density reduces because of the vacancies
What is a frenkel defect?
when an ion leaves original lattice site and occupies an interstitial position on the same crystal
In a frenkel defect what ion is usually displaced?
the cation
What is the difference between a schottkey defect and a frenkel defect?
- Shottky occurs in ionic cyrstals where difference ins ize between cation and anion is small while in frenkely the difference is large.
- In shottky, both the cation and anion leave while in frenkely only the smaller ion leaves.
- In the shottky the pair leave the cyrstal completeley while in frenkely the ions stay
What happen to the point defects in the shotkey and frenkel defect?
In shottkey, both the anion and cation leave the crystal while in frenkel the cation creates a vacancy and gos to an insterstitial place
What are the two types of dislocations?
edge and screw dislocations