Global nuclear energy partnership fuels transient testing at the Sandia National Laboratories nuclear facilities : planning and facility infrastructure options.

Technical Report · Mon Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/934862· OSTI ID:934862

Kelly, John E; Wright, Steven Alan; Tikare, Veena; MacLean, Heather J ^[1]; Parma, Jr, Edward J; Peters, Curtis D; Vernon, Milton E; Pickard, Paul S

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1. Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho Falls, ID

The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership fuels development program is currently developing metallic, oxide, and nitride fuel forms as candidate fuels for an Advanced Burner Reactor. The Advance Burner Reactor is being designed to fission actinides efficiently, thereby reducing the long-term storage requirements for spent fuel repositories. Small fuel samples are being fabricated and evaluated with different transuranic loadings and with extensive burnup using the Advanced Test Reactor. During the next several years, numerous fuel samples will be fabricated, evaluated, and tested, with the eventual goal of developing a transmuter fuel database that supports the down selection to the most suitable fuel type. To provide a comparative database of safety margins for the range of potential transmuter fuels, this report describes a plan to conduct a set of early transient tests in the Annular Core Research Reactor at Sandia National Laboratories. The Annular Core Research Reactor is uniquely qualified to perform these types of tests because of its wide range of operating capabilities and large dry central cavity which extents through the center of the core. The goal of the fuels testing program is to demonstrate that the design and fabrication processes are of sufficient quality that the fuel will not fail at its design limit--up to a specified burnup, power density, and operating temperature. Transient testing is required to determine the fuel pin failure thresholds and to demonstrate that adequate fuel failure margins exist during the postulated design basis accidents.

• Research Organization: Sandia National Laboratories
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC04-94AL85000
• OSTI ID: 934862
• Report Number(s): SAND2007-7308
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
ACPR REACTOR
ACTINIDES
BURNERS
BURNUP
DESIGN BASIS ACCIDENTS
FABRICATION
FISSION
FUEL PINS
Fission products-Research.
NITRIDES
NUCLEAR ENERGY
NUCLEAR FACILITIES
Nuclear fuels.
Nuclear research and test reactors.
POWER DENSITY
SAFETY MARGINS
SPENT FUELS
STORAGE
TEST REACTORS
TESTING
TRANSIENTS