Siemens atrium~TM-10 fuel poised to meet tomorrow's economic requirements

摘要

Over the past several decades,significant improvements in BWR fuel designs have taken place,some in response to substandard performance.Improvements in fuel designs have effectively mitigated internal hydriding,pellet-cladding interaction,and crud induced localized corrosion.Manufacturing procedures,materials,and the fuel assembly structure have all been improved substantially in response to fuel performance problems.The manufacturing procedures and materials are typically proprietary to the fuel suppliers,but have effectively eliminated the internal hydriding and crud induced localized corrosion problems.The fuel assembly structure (i.e.,the evolution from 7x7 lattics to 10x10 lattices) and the introduction of BWR liner cladding have effectively eliminated the pellet-cladding interaction failure mechanism in the fuel produced by Siemens.In some cases,the initial introduction of liner fuel created another problem,post-failure degradation.Although many utilities are still concerned with the post-failure performance capabilities of some fuel designs currently being supplied,this problem has been solved by the introduction of the Siemens iron-enhanced liner cladding.Additionally,we now know that,due to their lower Linear Heat Generation Rates (LHGR),10x10 fuel designs do not require liner cladding for most applications.