Supply of a scanning electron microscope to be used for the analysis of nuclear material.

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The JRC Karlsruhe plans to purchase a scanning electron microscope to back up the current investigations on safety of nuclear fuels and materials. In order to characterise effectively highly heterogeneous materials such as irradiated nuclear fuel in terms of chemical, mechanical, physical and thermal properties it is necessary to characterise specific phases and/or regions formed during irradiation. The SEM concept envisaged here shall greatly contribute to singling out phases or regions of interest for direct characterisation. This will improve the assessment of the safety of various compounds used or proposed for applications as nuclear fuel or material. The main materials studied are irradiated fuels for current (UO2, MOX) and future nuclear reactors, different matrices for high level waste disposal and structural nuclear materials. Imaging, material microstructure and composition analysis will be performed using the SEM.