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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

/sup 238/Pu fuel form processes. Monthly report, July--August 1978

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6498998· OSTI ID:6498998
Microstructural analysis of /sup 238/PuO/sub 2/ pellets fabricated in the PuFF parametric experiment is in progress to relate incidence of cracking to process conditions, microstructure, and density. Additional precipitation tests were performed to determine the cause of inferior /sup 239/PuO/sub 2/ feed powder made in SRP precipitations of Pu(IV) oxalate. None of the variables tested caused the abnormally fine particle and large agglomerates that exist in plant feed. These variables included residual heel in precipitator, /sup 238/Pu vs /sup 239/Pu, stirring rate during precipitation, high Pu concentration, nitric acid concentration, and precipitation temperature. Heating of 95%-dense, cold-pressed-and-sintered /sup 238/PuO/sub 2/ pellets at 1200/sup 0/C and above after 14 months' aging produced large internal cracks attributable to decay helium. Laboratory-scale and production-scale fabrication tests of /sup 238/PuO/sub 2/ shard fuel demonstrated that acceptable shards can be produced from calcined plutonium oxalate powder for Milliwatt Heat Sources. A scaleup problem in the production test resulted in /sup 238/PuO/sub 2/ shards of morphology inferior to that of shards made in the laboratory.
Research Organization:
Du Pont de Nemours (E.I.) and Co., Aiken, SC (USA). Savannah River Lab.
DOE Contract Number:
EY-76-C-09-0001
OSTI ID:
6498998
Report Number(s):
DPST-78-128-7/8
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English