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The distribution and atomic structure of grain boundaries has been investigated in UO2. Our scanning electron microscopic/electron backscatter diffraction experiments on a depleted UO2 sample showed real nuclear fuels contain a combination of special coincident site lattice (CSL) and general boundaries. The experimental data indicated that ∼16% of the boundaries were CSL boundaries and the CSL distribution was dominated by low Σ boundaries; namely Σ9, Σ3, and Σ5 Based on our experimental observations, the structures of select low Σ (Σ5 tilt, Σ5 twist, Σ3 tilt) and a random boundary were analyzed in greater detail using empirical potential atomic‐scale calculations. Our calculations indicate that the boundaries have very different structures and each CSL boundary had multiple minima on the γ‐surface. The presence of a significant fraction of CSL boundaries and the differences in their structures are expected to have important consequences on fuel properties.

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A method for obtaining detailed two-dimensional strain maps in nanowires and related nanoscale structures has been developed. The approach relies on a combination of lattice imaging by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and geometric phase analysis of the resulting micrographs using Fourier transform routines. We demonstrate the method for a germanium nanowire grown epitaxially on Si(111) by obtaining the strain components epsilon(xx), epsilon(yy), epsilon(xy), the mean dilatation, and the rotation of the lattice planes. The resulting strain maps are demonstrated to allow detailed evaluation of the strains and loading on nanowires.

This paper addresses the issue of creating a lattice model suitable for design purposes and capable of quantitative estimates of the mechanical properties of a disordered microstructure. The lack of resemblance between idealized lattice models and real materials has limited these models to the realm of qualitative analysis. Two procedures based on the same methodology are presented in the two-dimensional case to achieve the rigorous mapping of the geometrical and the elastic properties of a disordered polycrystalline microstructure into a spring lattice. The theory is validated against finite elements models and literature data of NiAl. The statistical analysis of 900 models provided the effective Young's modulus and Poisson ratio as function of the lattice size. The lattice models that were created have in average the same Young's modulus of the real microstructure. However, the Poisson's ratio could not be matched in the two-dimensional case. The spring constants of the lattices from this technique follow a Gaussian distribution, which intrinsically reflects the mechanical and geometrical disorder of the microscale. The detailed knowledge of the microstructure and the Voronoi tessellation necessary to implement this technique are supplied by modern laboratory equipments and software. As an illustrative example of lattice application, damage simulations of several biaxial loading schemes are briefly reported to show the effectiveness of discrete models towards elastic anisotropy induced by damage and damage localization.