Status PIE Report on Legacy EBR-II and FFTF Metallic Fuel Experiments
A long term research focus of the US Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Fuels Campaign (AFC) is to investigate technologies that can allow for increased actinide utilization in nuclear fuel for fast neutron spectrum reactors. In order to reach these goals, many experimental campaigns have been tested in an approximated fast reactor neutron spectra at the Idaho National Laboratory Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) in order to study the performance of metallic, nitride, ceramic and advance fuel forms. In addition and complementary to ATR testing, systematic characterization of experiments irradiated in true fast reactors are performed in order to assess ATR in qualifying fast reactor fuel. For this purpose, complementary postirradiation examinations (PIE) are performed on several metallic fuel pins previously irradiated in the EBR II. Advanced PIE techniques developed since the initial PIE of EBR II samples in the 1980’s have been applied in new examinations of irradiated samples during past EBR-II operations. The EBR-II metallic fuel pins analyzed in this report are X501 G591, an early minor actinide-bearing metallic fuel alloy; X430-T653, a U-19Pu-10Zr metallic fuel alloy with a larger diameter compared to EBR-II driver fuel, and more prototypic of future commercial fast reactors; X521-G594, a unique experiment to test the feasibility to burn weapon grade Pu without reprocessing; X496 CL47&CL39 from a long-life metallic fuel experiment with the goal to reach very high burnup; and X486-J555 a U-10Zr Mk-IIIA qualification fuel test that will serve as first of a kind “modelling driven PIE.” These legacy pins were evaluated against the historical fuel performance of previously irradiated fuel from literature. Fuel performance was investigated through a suite of PIE techniques including neutron radiography, gamma spectrometry, dimensional inspection, fission gas release measurements, chemical burnup analysis, optical microscopy, and advance microscopy. So far, the PIE campaign revealed fuel performance and characteristics that are generally in line with literature or EBR-II experience. Some exceptions are present, and they are directly discussed in this report.
- Research Organization:
- Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- US DOE Office of Nuclear Energy
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC07-05ID14517
- OSTI ID:
- 1604754
- Report Number(s):
- INL/EXT-19-55847-Rev000
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Characterization of a minor actinides bearing metallic fuel pin irradiated in EBR-II
Full-length U-xPu-10Zr (x=0, 8, 19 wt%) Fast Reactor Fuel Test in FFTF