Accurate Nuclear Fuel Burnup Analysis (Thirteenth Quarterly Progress Report, December 1964 - February 1965)

Technical Report · Mon Mar 01 04:00:00 EST 1965

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/4588530· OSTI ID:4588530

Rider, B. F. ^[1]; Ruiz, C. P. ^[1]; Peterson, Jr., J. P. ^[1]; Seymour, R. S. ^[1]; Jaech, J. L. ^[1]; Smith, F. R. ^[1]

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1. General Electric Co., San Jose, CA (United States)

Accurate measurements of fuel burnup are required to aid in reactor design for high burnup fuels and to aid in evaluating nuclear fuel costs. The usefulness of current radiochemical methods is limited because: (a) limited availability of long-lived radioactive isotopes among the fission products; (b) the accuracy with which these fission products can be measured because of uncertainties in their physical constants; and (c) the volatile nature of the few available isotopes. Mass spectrometric techniques are being investigated to obtain a more accurate burnup analysis by measuring the quantity of the nonradioactive refractory fission products produced from a variety of fuels. By using the accurate isotope dilution technique on stable fission products, errors that limit the final accuracy of radiochemical measurements are eliminated, such as errors in counting efficiencies, decay schemes, and decay constants, as well as those found in out-of-pile and in-pile decay corrections.

• Research Organization: General Electric Co., San Jose, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC); USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP)
• NSA Number: NSA-19-038125
• OSTI ID: 4588530
• Report Number(s): GEAP--4817
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
BARIUM
BORATES
BURNUP
CERIUM
COMPUTERS
Criticality Studies
DECAY
DIGITAL SYSTEMS
EFFICIENCY
ERRORS
FISSION PRODUCTS
FOILS
IMPURITIES
MASS SPECTROMETERS
MEASURED VALUES
Mass spectrometric
NEODYMIUM
NUMERICALS
Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP)
PLUTONIUM
PLUTONIUM 239
PROGRAMMING
QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS
QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS
QUANTITY RATIO
RARE EARTHS
RHENIUM
SODIUM COMPOUNDS
SOLUTIONS
STANDARDS
TANTALUM
URANIUM
URANIUM 233
URANIUM 235
Uranium fuel
WIRES