Nuclear fuels technologies fiscal year 1998 feed materials baseline development summary report

Technical Report · Tue Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 1998

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/325763· OSTI ID:325763

Eaton, S L; Neuman, A D; Teague, J G; Talachy, S A; Chidester, K

This document summarizes a portion of the work performed for the fuel fabrication process development task for the fiscal year 1998 (FY98) research and development (R and D) activities at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). It was determined through previous efforts that development work is necessary when new feed materials are introduced into an established fabrication process. The FMD Program decided to select a new UO{sub 2} source in FY98 for use in fuel fabrication R and D activities. The new source identified was UO{sub 2} powder derived from the Ammonium Uranyl Carbonate (AUC) process. Fuel fabrication activities to date have used Cameco UO{sub 2} obtained from Canada. The properties of Cameco UO{sub 2} differ significantly from those of AUC-derived UO{sub 2}. Although the AUC-derived UO{sub 2} material was used previously to fabricate the majority of the European reactor-grade mixed oxide (MOX) fuel, it is important to establish how it will interact with weapons-grade plutonium in terms of fuel fabricability. Furthermore, plutonium feed materials can be quite different (from a ceramics perspective) depending on the conversion process and processing parameters, and it is important to quantify the effects these differences may have on the fuel fabrication process. There were two main tasks included in this effort: (1) Develop baseline MOX fuel fabrication processing parameters for the AUC-derived source of UO{sub 2} feed material, using both surrogate CeO{sub 2} and prototypic PuO{sub 2} powders. (2) Fabricate MOX fuel using the baseline fabrication processing parameters, the new source of UO{sub 2} feed material, and an alternative source of PuO{sub 2} feed material. The experiments performed and results obtained from these Feed Materials Baseline Development activities are described.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-36
• OSTI ID: 325763
• Report Number(s): LA-UR--98-3990; ON: DE99002019
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

05 NUCLEAR FUELS
21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
CERIUM OXIDES
COMPATIBILITY
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FABRICATION
FUEL FABRICATION PLANTS
MIXED OXIDE FUELS
NESDPS Office of Nuclear Energy Space and Defense Power Systems
NUCLEAR WEAPONS DISMANTLEMENT
PLUTONIUM OXIDES
SINTERING
URANIUM DIOXIDE