Demonstration of Minor Actinide Recycle with Metal Fuel IV. Analyses of Post-Irradiation Examination Data of Minor Actinide-Bearing Metal Fuel

Minor actinide (MA)-bearing metal fuels were irradiated in the fast reactor Phénix to understand the effects of MA addition on the fuel irradiation performance and demonstrate MA transmutation. In the experiment, metal fuel pins that contain U-Pu-Zr-MA alloys were irradiated up to ~2 at.%, ~6 at.% and ~10 at.% burnups. The irradiation behavior of MA-bearing metal fuels was analyzed using the ALFUS code. The results of the ALFUS calculation were consistent with post-irradiation examination data such as fuel stack elongation, bond sodium extrusion ratio, cladding deformation and cross-sectional phase structure, regardless of the addition of MAs to the U-Pu-Zr fuel. This indicates that the macroscopic irradiation behavior of U-Pu-Zr fuel containing MAs up to 5 wt% can be predicted by ALFUS. The isotopic compositions of Am and Cm were calculated with the ORIGEN-2 code. The change in the isotopic compositions due to actinide burning was reasonably well predicted by ORIGEN-2. This means that MAs added to metal fuel have transmuted in a fast reactor as expected.

OHTA Hirokazu;  OGATA Takanari;  INAGAKI Kenta;  RONDINELLA Vincenzo;  BREMIER Stephan;  VAN WINCKEL Stefaan;  PAPAIOANNOU Dimitrios;  CAPRIOTTI Luca;  GLATZ Jean-Paul; 

2016-01-21

SFEN

JRC96686

http://global2015papers.com/program.index.html,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC96686,