PROtect: ACCELERATED IMPLEMENTATION OF FRAMATOME’S EVOLUTIONARY eATF SOLUTION

摘要

Framatome is actively developing an evolutionaryenhanced Accident Tolerant Fuel (eATF) design, as partof its eATF PROtect program, showing enhancedperformance in both nominal and accidental conditions:Cr-coated M5Framatome cladding combined with Cr_2O_3-doped UO_2 fuel.The implementation of this product in reloadquantities requires the qualification of its behavior in allconditions: normal, anticipated operational occurrences(AOOs), and accidental conditions. This qualificationusually takes 15 to 20 years due to the need forirradiation data, which is obtained in an incrementalapproach from the irradiation of material components tothat of full fuel assemblies. Framatome has designed itsqualification plan for the implementation of its eATFPROtect evolutionary solution in order to bring thisproduct to market in significantly less time, with the goalof providing reloads by 2023-2025 at the latest. Thisqualification plan includes several surveillance andanalytical programs, both in and out-of-pile, performedwithin the French Joint Nuclear R&D program with CEAand EDF, and especially with strong partnerships withworldwide utilities.Cr_2O_3-doped UO_2 pellets have been developed forsome time and are already commercially available forreloads. Therefore the main objective is to now increasethe database to justify fuel burnup at very high levels andquantify the value in terms of accident tolerance.The main effort is concentrated on the developmentof the Cr-coated cladding to achieve fast implementation,and Framatome’s proactive approach has alreadyenabled the rapid evolution from material testing to theirradiation of full-length rods in a commercial reactorover a 4-year period.