Characterization of Uranium Carbide Spheres for Gas-Cooled Fast Reactors

摘要

Due to the high operating temperature of the gascooledfast reactor, one of the generation IV concepts, thereference fuel is a SiC matrix, uranium carbide-dispersionfuel. A similar fuel with coated uranium carbide spheresdispersed in a silicon carbide matrix was developed by theUnited Kingdom under the Advanced Gas Reactorprogram. In that preliminary development effort, theuranium carbide spheres were prepared by reactionsintering of green spheres containing uranium oxide andcarbon. Good fuel performance was reported. In thisresearch work, the uranium carbide spheres werefabricated by rotating electrode atomization. Theseceramic spheres will be coated with a thin layer of siliconcarbide by chemical vapor deposition then incorporatedinto a reaction-bonded silicon carbide inert matrix.