Development of a characterization methodology for post-irradiation examination of miniature fuel specimens

Technical Report · Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 EDT 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1474563· OSTI ID:1474563

Raftery, Alicia M. ^[1]; Morris, Robert Noel ^[1]; Smith, Kurt R. ^[1]; Helmreich, Grant W. ^[1]; Petrie, Christian M. ^[1]; Terrani, Kurt A. ^[1]; Nelson, Andrew T. ^[1]

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

The miniature fuel (MiniFuel) irradiation experimental design at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) enables benchmark testing and separate effects testing of novel fuel types in the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) in support of the Advanced Fuels Campaign (AFC). The first round of MiniFuel sub-capsules will be available for post-irradiation examination at the end of 2018. This report establishes the procedure for disassembly, fuel retrieval, post-irradiation analysis of the fission product behavior (fission gas release and fuel swelling), and microstructural characterization of the irradiated MiniFuel specimens. All methods were tested and validated out-of-cell and are ready to be implemented in-cell for use on the first set of irradiated MiniFuel specimens. The path forward regarding further characterization techniques is presented, which will involve analyzing other specimen geometries using the methods presented in this report and expanding the post-irradiation analysis of MiniFuel specimens to include additional properties.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1474563
• Report Number(s): ORNL/SPR-2018/918
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English