The swelling of uranium and of a few selected uranium alloys on post-irradiation annealing was investigated by utilizing density measurements in conjunction with the observation of pores in the microstructures of annealed specimens. Specimens were irradiated to about 0.3 at.% burnup in a constrained condition at approximately 275 deg C and were subsequently pulse annealed. The amount of swelling was found to be less than 1% for U specimens that were pulse annealed up to 75 hr at temperatures below 550 deg C; the amount of swelling, however, increased considerably on annealing at temperatures between 550 and 650 deg C. Specimens pulse annealed up to 75 hr at 618 deg C decreased in density by approximately 18%. The swelling was accompanied by the formation of bubbles on grain boundaries in recrystallized regions. The observations suggest that recrystallization is a necessary prerequisite for pronounced swelling in the alpha phase.

Cavitational swelling has been identified as a potential swelling mechanism for the alpha uranium phase of irradiated U-Pu-Zr metal fuels for the Integral Fast Reactor being developed at Argonne National Laboratory. The trends of U-Pu-Zr swelling data prior to fuel cladding contact can be interpreted in terms of unrestrained cavitational driven swelling. It is theorized that the swelling mechanisms at work in the alpha uranium phase can be modeled by single vacancy and single interstitial kinetics with intergranular gas bubbles providing the void nuclei, avoiding the use of complicated defect interaction terms required for the calculation of void nucleation. The focus of the kinetics of fission gas evolution as it relates to cavitational swelling is prior to the formation of a significant amount of interconnected porosity and is on the development of small intergranular gas bubbles which can act as void nuclei. Calculations for the evolution of intergranular fission gas bubbles show that they provide critical cavity sizes (i.e., the size above which the cavity will grow by bias-driven vacancy flux) consistent with the observed incubation dose for the onset of rapid swelling and gas release.