Review of fuel/cladding eutectic formation in metallic SFR fuel pins
- MIT, 77 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139 (United States)
Sodium-cooled Fast Reactors (SFRs) remain a strong contender amongst the Generation IV reactor concepts. Metallic fuel has been a primary fuel option for SFR designers in the US and was used extensively in the first generation of SFRs. One of the benefits of metallic fuel is its chemical compatibility with the coolant; unfortunately this compatibility does not extend to steel cladding at elevated temperatures. It has been known that uranium, plutonium, and rare earths diffuse with cladding constituents to form a low melting point fuel/cladding eutectic which acts to thin the cladding once the interfacial temperature rises above the system liquidus temperature. Since the 1960's, many experiments have been performed and published to evaluate the rate of fuel/cladding eutectic formation and the temperature above which melting will begin as a function of fuel/cladding interfacial temperature, time at temperature, fuel constituents (uranium, fissium or uranium (plutonium) zirconium), cladding type (stainless steel 316, stainless steel 306, D9 or HT9), beginning of life linear power, plutonium enrichment and burnup. The results of these tests, however, remain scattered across conference and journal papers spanning 50 years. The tests used to collect this data also varied in experimental procedure throughout the years. This paper will consolidate the experimental data into four groups of similar test conditions and expand upon the testing performed for each group in detail. A companion paper in PSA 2011 will discuss predictive correlations formulated from this database. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 22105992
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: ICAPP '12: 2012 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants, Chicago, IL (United States), 24-28 Jun 2012; Other Information: Country of input: France; 19 refs.; Related Information: In: Proceedings of the 2012 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants - ICAPP '12| 2799 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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