Abstract
This paper summarizes the characteristics of the fully ceramic microencapsulated (FCM) fuel concept and two potential light water reactor (LWR) applications of FCM fuels: for actinide management and as an accident tolerant fuel (ATF). Recent progress in FCM fuel development includes production of uranium mononitride kernels, fabrication of FCM pellets and pins, and irradiation testing of matrix samples and FCM pellets. Potential applications of FCM fuel in LWRs appear promising based upon studies performed by several organizations; however, further efforts are needed to investigate various design aspects in further detail and explore promising new areas of research such as new fuel pin and assembly designs or alternate materials of interest. Current challenges in FCM fuel development and LWR applications for FCM fuels include low heavy metal fuel loading densities and increased uncertainties in analysis due to several different factors. Overall, LWR FCM concepts appear feasible for both actinide management and as an ATF.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| State | Published - 2014 |
| Event | 2014 International Conference on Physics of Reactors, PHYSOR 2014 - Kyoto, Japan Duration: Sep 28 2014 → Oct 3 2014 |
Conference
| Conference | 2014 International Conference on Physics of Reactors, PHYSOR 2014 |
|---|---|
| Country/Territory | Japan |
| City | Kyoto |
| Period | 09/28/14 → 10/3/14 |
Funding
* This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The authors wish to thank Steve Bowman and Andrew Godfrey of ORNL for their thoughtful review comments. Reactor physics calculations shown were performed by Nathan George and Cole Gentry, both of whom are graduate students at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Appropriate citations note where published data was reproduced or summarized. Professor Ivan Maldonado advises Nathan and Cole and provided valuable input to the work that was conducted. This work was funded by the Advanced Fuels Campaign of the Fuel Cycle Research and Development (FCRD) program in the US Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| DOE-NE | |
| Fuel Cycle Research and Development | |
| U.S. Department of Energy | |
| Office of Nuclear Energy |
Keywords
- ATF
- Accident tolerant fuel
- Actinide management
- FCM
- LWR
- Light water reactor