Mixed oxide fuel development

Abstract

This paper describes the success of the ongoing mixed-oxide fuel development program in the United States aimed at qualifying an economical fuel system for liquid metal cooled reactors. This development has been the cornerstone of the US program for the past 20 years and has proceeded in a deliberate and highly disciplined fashion with high emphasis on fuel reliability and operational safety as major features of an economical fuel system. The program progresses from feature testing in EBR-II to qualifying full size components in FFTF under fully prototypic conditions to establish a basis for extending allowable lifetimes. The development program started with the one year (300 EFPD) core, which is the FFTF driver fuel, continued with the demonstration of a two year (600 EFPD) core and is presently evaluating a three year (900 EFPD) fuel system. All three of these systems, consistent with other LMR fuel programs around the world, use fuel pellets gas bonded to a cladding tube that is assembled into a bundle and fitted into a wrapper tube or duct for ease of insertion into a core. The materials of construction progressed from austenitic CW 316 SS to lower swelling austenitic D9 to non swelling ferritic/martensitic HT9. 6 figs., 2 tabs.