Acceptance Test Data for the AGR-5/6/7 Irradiation Test Fuel Composite Defective IPyC Fraction and Pyrocarbon Anisotropy

Technical Report · Mon May 01 00:00:00 EDT 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1357976· OSTI ID:1357976

Helmreich, Grant W. ^[1]; Hunn, John D. ^[1]; Skitt, Darren J. ^[1]; Dyer, John A. ^[1]; Schumacher, Austin T. ^[1]

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1. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Coated particle composite J52R-16-98005 was produced by Babcock and Wilcox Technologies (BWXT) as fuel for the Advanced Gas Reactor Fuel Development and Qualification (AGR) Program’s AGR-5/6/7 irradiation test in the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Advanced Test Reactor (ATR). This composite was comprised of four coated particle fuel batches J52O-16-93165B (26%), 93168B (26%), 93169B (24%), and 93170B (24%), chosen based on the Quality Control (QC) data acquired for each individual candidate AGR-5/6/7 batch. Each batch was coated in a 150-mm-diameter production-scale fluidized-bed chemical vapor deposition (CVD) furnace. Tristructural isotropic (TRISO) coatings were deposited on 425-μm-nominal-diameter spherical kernels from BWXT Lot J52R-16-69317 containing a mixture of 15.5%-enriched uranium carbide and uranium oxide (UCO). The TRISO coatings consisted of four consecutive CVD layers: a ~50% dense carbon buffer layer with 100-μm-nominal thickness, a dense inner pyrolytic carbon (IPyC) layer with 40-μm-nominal thickness, a silicon carbide (SiC) layer with 35-μm-nominal thickness, and a dense outer pyrolytic carbon (OPyC) layer with 40-μm-nominal thickness. The TRISO-coated particle batches were sieved to upgrade the particles by removing over-sized and under-sized material, and the upgraded batches were designated by appending the letter A to the end of the batch number (e.g., 93165A). Secondary upgrading by sieving was performed on the A-designated batches to remove particles with missing or very-thin buffer layers that were identified during previous analysis of the individual batches for defective IPyC, as reported in the acceptance test data report for the AGR-5/6/7 production batches [Hunn et al. 2017]. The additionally-upgraded batches were designated by appending the letter B to the end of the batch number (e.g., 93165B).

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1357976
• Report Number(s): ORNL/TM-2017/37
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
AGR
TRISO
HTGR
QC