Post Irradiation Examination of Fast Reactor Metallic Fuel for Minor Actinides Transmutation

Advanced nuclear reactors and closed nuclear fuel cycles are important option to achieve sustainable nuclear energy supplies to satisfy future demands while reducing the long-term radiotoxicity of high level waste. Spent fuel reprocessing and the subsequent recycling of U and Pu as fuel and transmutation of Minor Actinides (MA) Np, Am, Cm in fast reactors are necessary steps to gain this goal. The METAPHIX programme is a collaboration between the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI, Japan) and the Institute for Transuranium Elements (ITU, a Joint Research Centre of the European Commission) with the support of the Commissariat à l´Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives (CEA, France) devoted to study the safety and effectiveness of a closed nuclear fuel cycle based on MA separation and irradiation in metallic fuel using fast reactor. In this frame, three assemblies containing nine Na-bonded experimental pins of metal alloy fuel prepared at ITU were loaded in the Phénix reactor in 2003 and irradiated at three different burn-up, 2.5 at.%, 7 at.% and 10 at%. Table I reports the average compositions of four different metallic alloys ingots fabricated: UPuZr used as reference, UPuZr + 2 or 5 wt.% MA, and UPuZr + MA + Rare Earths (RE). RE were added to reproduce the output of a pyrometallurgical reprocessing facility. PIE is performed in ITU to characterize the metallic fuel behavior in pile, considering properties ranging from the macroscopic morphology of the fuel matrix to the microanalysis of phase and elemental redistribution / segregation. This paper presents some highlights of the results obtained from the low and medium burn-up fuel examination.

CAPRIOTTI Luca;  INAGAKI Kenta;  PAPAIOANNOU Dimitrios;  BREMIER Stephan;  OHTA Hirokazu;  OGATA T;  RONDINELLA Vincenzo;  MACIAN-JUAN Rafael; 

2014-11-27

International Youth Nuclear Congress

JRC85186