Irradiation Experiment on Minor Actinide-Containing Metal Fuels to ~10at.% Burnup

Fast reactor metal fuels of U-Pu-Zr alloy containing minor actinides (MAs) Np, Am and Cm and rare-earths (REs) Y, Nd, Ce and Gd were irradiated up to ~10 at.% burnup in the fast reactor Phénix, France. The irradiated metal fuel pins were subjected to nondestructive tests (NDTs) after cooling. Visual inspection indicated no noteworthy degradation on the cladding surfaces. The maximum diametral deformation of the cladding was ~0.9%, regardless of MA and RE addition, and was predicted with reasonable accuracy by the ALFUS code developed for the irradiation behavior analysis of U-Pu-Zr alloy fuels. The axial gamma-ray distribution of 106Ru suggested fuel stack elongations of 1.9-2.5%, 3.5-4.1% and 5.6-6.6% in the fuel pins with ~2.5 at.%, ~7 at.% and ~10 at.% burnup, respectively. These results are in fair agreement with the corresponding values obtained by ALFUS of 4.0, 4.3 and 5.6%, respectively. Nondestructive test results showed no significant difference in the irradiation behavior of MA- and RE-containing alloys compared with that of the U-Pu-Zr ternary alloy fuels. This indicates that the addition of small amounts (5 wt% or less) of MAs and REs does not significantly affect the macroscopic irradiation characteristics of U-Pu-Zr ternary fuels up to ~10 at.% burnup.

OHTA Hirokazu;  OGATA T;  KOYAMA T.;  PAPAIOANNOU Dimitrios;  RONDINELLA Vincenzo;  GLATZ Jean-Paul;  MASSON Marc;  PAUL Jean-Luc; 

2012-05-16

Atomic Energy Society of Japan

JRC67155

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC67155,