Ball-milling Effect on the Sinterability of the UO₂ ex-AUC Powder

In order to investigate the ball-milling effect on the property changes of UO ex-AUC powder, the sinterability of ball -milled powder was studied in terms of the ball -milling time. Spherical shape was found to be kept for ball-milled UO powder and the particle size showed a bimodal distribution, which seems to have a higher packing ratio compared with those having monomodal gaussian distribution. The increase of sintered density of the ball -milled UO powder is assumed to be mainly affected by the packing ratio, which increase with longer ball -milling time. It is confirmed that the sinterability of UO ex-AUC powder is improved by the ball-milling process.