US Progress on Property Characterization to Support LEU U-10 Mo Monolithic Fuel Development

Conference · Tue Mar 01 00:00:00 EST 2016

OSTI ID:1348065

Cole, James Irvin ^[1]; Rabin, Barry H ^[1]; Smith, James Arthur ^[1]; Scott, Clark Landon ^[1]; Benefiel, Bradley Curtis ^[1]; Larsen, Eric David ^[1]; Lind, Robert Paul ^[1]; Sell, David Alan ^[1]

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1. Idaho National Laboratory

The US High Performance Research Reactor program is pursuing development and qualification of a new high density monolithic LEU fuel to facilitate conversion of five higher power research reactors located in the US (ATR, HFIR, NBSR, MIT and MURR). In order to support fabrication development and fuel performance evaluations, new testing capabilities are being developed to evaluate the properties of fuel specimens. Residual stress and fuel-cladding bond strength are two characteristics related to fuel performance that are being investigated. In this overview, new measurement capabilities being developed to assess these characteristics in both fresh and irradiated fuel are described. Progress on fresh fuel testing is summarized and on-going hot-cell implementation efforts to support future PIE campaigns are detailed. It is anticipated that benchmarking of as-fabricated fuel characteristics will be critical to establishing technical bases for specifications that optimize fuel fabrication and ensure acceptable in-reactor fuel performance.

• Research Organization: Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC07-05ID14517
• OSTI ID: 1348065
• Report Number(s): INL/CON-15-37380
• Resource Relation: Conference: RRFM/IGORR 2016 European Research Reactor Conference, Berlin, Germany, 3/13/2016 - 3/17/2016
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

Characterization
LEU Fuel
PIE