Assessment of gel-sphere-pac fuel for fast breeder reactors

Sphere-Pac Evaluation for Transmutation

“…These two benefits should act to "improve fuel element performance and decrease cladding failures." 3 The fuel restructuring in the fast flux irradiations was found to be similar to that in the thermal irradiations.…”

“…After the completion of this program, an assessment was performed regarding the use of sphere-pac technology for the preparation of fast breeder reactor oxide and carbide fuels. 3 A similar report was prepared for thermal reactor fuels.…”

“…[1][2][3][4] For minor-actinide-bearing fuels, the sphere-pac form is likely to accept the large helium-release from 241 Am transmutation with less difficulty than pellet forms and is especially well suited to remote fabrication as a dustless fuel form that requires a minimum number of mechanical operations. Sphere-pac (and vi-pac) fuel is being explored as a plutonium-burning fuel by the European Community, the Russian Federation, and Japan.…”

“…Both steady-state and transient tests showed that "sphere-pac oxide fuel should behave similarly to pellet oxide under fast breeder reactor operating conditions." 3 Tests comparing sphere-pac and pellet fuel in the ORR showed FCCI for the pellet fuel but none for the sphere-pac fuel. Similar results were seen for an irradiation in the Engineering Test Reactor (ETR) in Idaho.…”

Study on Preparation and First-Stage Sintering Kinetics of ThO2-UO2Pellets Made by Sol-Gel Microspheres Technique

“…In addition, it is more dicult to get a homogeneous mixture of two dierent powders by powder metallurgical method. Sol-gel process is thus an alternative fabrication process to reduce the radiation dose received by the operators, oering a great degree of pellet homogeneity [1,2]. Homogeneous composition simplies the solid solution formation of mixed oxides which is an important prerequisite to obtain good pellets in the sintering step of the process [35].…”