Plutonium Fuel Processing and Fabrication for Fast Ceramic Reactors

Abstract

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Breeder Reactors

“…Plutonium fuel development was reviewed by Storhok (127), Okrent (101), and Zebroski (148,149). The Atomic Power Equipment Department of the General Electric Company is developing ceramic fuels (81) capable of long life (100 MW-d/kg) , while Argonne National Laboratory is developing a metallic fuel (39) having many desirable properties but limited to exposures of 20 MW-d/kg or less, together with advanced fuel reprocessing methods (149) which are expected to be so economical that short life will be tolerable.…”

“…These noble-metal fission products are not removed by the pyrometallurgical process proposed for the EBR-II fuel (149). As a result of high thermal conductivity, of high atom density, and of being free from "fellow traveling" atoms such as are present in oxide and carbide fuels, the metallic fuels in small reactors show high breeding ratios, together with excellent safety characteristics stemming mainly from axial expansion of the free-standing fuel elements.…”

“…The admixture of plutonium oxide is not expected to impair these properties (12). Methods of fabrication and processing are under intensive development (16,127,149,150).…”

“…Fast ceramic breeders.-The leading fuel for fast reactors presently is (Pu, U)0 2 clad in stainless steel (150). This choice of oxide rather than car bide was partly dictated by the availability of a large body of knowledge and skills developed for the oxide fuels in connection with their use in present-generation thermal reactors.…”

Core Design Study for a 500MWe Fast Oxide Reactor

“…1. Fabrication: Estimates of the cost of fabricating plutoniu.m bearing oxide fuel have been made for pins of the dimensions specified for the reference design (23,24). A flow diagram for the fabricating process is outlined, and estimates of the personnel and equipment required are shown in reference (23).…”