Nuclear fuel concept for the 21st century

Journal Article · Tue Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1996 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society

OSTI ID:426336

Tulenko, J S; Schoessow, G ^[1]

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1. Univ. of Florida, Gainesville, FL (United States)

In a previous paper, the author presented his rationale for the fuel cycle for the 21st century. This cycle, driven by both environmental and economic factors, required that the fuel should be able to operate in a range from 90 000 MWd/tonne of heavy metal and above. Such an operation would require the development of a cladding material that would not undergo waterside corrosion at these ultrahigh burnups. The University of Florida is proposing a new fuel arrangement that the authors feel meets the demands of high burnup and provides a safer fuel assembly. It is believed that the liquid-metal bond concept combined with a silicon carbide composite cladding and the collapsible fission gas plenum offers outstanding potential for ultrahigh burnup fuels while providing a potentially ultrasafe reactor operation. Efforts at various facilities are under way to determine the radiation stability of silicon carbide fuel and to fabricate SiC materials that will provide the radiation stability needed. Other parameters offer strong incentives to successfully develop silicon carbide as a cladding material.

• OSTI ID: 426336
• Report Number(s): CONF-961103--
• Journal Information: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Vol. 75; ISSN 0003-018X; ISSN TANSAO
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

05 NUCLEAR FUELS
22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
BURNUP
COMPOSITE MATERIALS
CORROSION RESISTANCE
FUEL CANS
FUEL CYCLE
NUCLEAR FUELS
PHYSICAL RADIATION EFFECTS
SILICON CARBIDES