Short communication: Spark plasma sintering as an innovative process for nuclear fuel plate manufacturing

Abstract

In this paper, we propose an alternative process based on spark plasma sintering for the manufacture of nuclear fuel plates for research reactors. This process presents significant flexibility to control manufacturing parameters such as fuel meat geometry and porosity according to the designer specifications. Furthermore, it allows to increase uranium loading up to 7.3 g U cm -3 , exceeding the current requirements for high performance MTRs. With this process neither dogbone, fishtail nor sharp particles penetrating the cladding are observed. The potentialities of this approach are illustrated with the manufacturing of a high loaded (5.6 g U cm -3 ) U 3 Si 2 /Al mini-plate.