Fabrication Characteristics of Large Grain DUPIC Fuel Using SIMFUEL
- Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, 150-1 Duckjin-Dong, 1045 Daedeokdaero, Yuseong, Daejeon Korea, 305-353 (Korea, Republic of)
Fabrication characteristics to improve the density and grain size of DUPIC fuel with relation to its fuel performance were experimentally evaluated using SIMFUEL as a surrogate for an actual spent PWR fuel due to the high radioactivity of a spent fuel. Hence, SIMFUELs with a burn-up of 35,000 MWd/tU and 60,000 MWd/tU were used to investigate the influence of fission products contents as an impurity on the fuel powder properties and on the density and grain size of a simulated DUPIC pellet. In order to improve the densification and grain growth of the simulated DUPIC fuel, the effect of the addition of sintering aids was investigated. The specific surface area of the OREOX powders was increased with an increase of the impurities by the dissolved oxides in UO{sub 2} among the impurity groups. The specific surface area of the powders milled after the OXREOX treatment was slightly higher than the UO{sub 2} powder used for a nuclear power plant, thus resulting in sintered pellets with a higher than 95% T.D. (theoretical density). The grain size of the sintered pellets was significantly decreased with increasing amount of the metallic and oxide precipitates. However, on adding the sintering aids such as TiO{sub 2} and Nb{sub 2}O{sub 5}, the grain size of the sintering aids-doped pellets was greatly improved by up to around 3 times that of the raw pellets and their sintered density was also increased by up to 2%. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 21229311
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 2007 LWR Fuel Performance Meeting / TopFuel 2007, San Francisco, CA (United States), 30 Sep - 3 Oct 2007; Other Information: Country of input: France; 8 refs; Related Information: In: Proceedings of the 2007 LWR Fuel Performance Meeting / TopFuel 2007 'Zero by 2010', 683 pages.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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