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A review of experiments and results from the TREAT facility

Journal Article · · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society
OSTI ID:298293
The Transient Reactor Test (TREAT) facility was designed and built in the late 1950s at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) to provide a transient reactor for safety experiments on samples of reactor fuels. It first operated in 1959. Throughout its history, experiments conducted in TREAT have been important in establishing the behavior of a wide variety of reactor fuel elements under conditions predicted to occur in reactor accidents ranging from mild off-normal transients to hypothetical core disruptive accidents. For much of its history, TREAT was used primarily to test liquid-metal reactor fuel elements, initially for the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II), then for the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF), the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Plant (CRBRP), the British Prototype Fast Reactor (PFR), and finally for the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR). Both oxide and metal elements were tested in dry capsules and in flowing sodium loops. The data obtained were instrumental in establishing the behavior of the fuel under off-normal and accident conditions, a necessary part of the safety analysis of the various reactors. In addition, TREAT was used to test light water reactor (LWR) elements in a steam environment to obtain fission product release data under meltdown conditions. Studies are now under way on applications of TREAT to testing of the behavior of high-burnup LWR elements under reactivity-initiated accident (RIA) conditions using a high-pressure water loop.
OSTI ID:
298293
Report Number(s):
CONF-981106--
Journal Information:
Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Vol. 79; ISSN 0003-018X; ISSN TANSAO
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English