Volatile Species Retention During Metallic Fuel Casting

摘要

To effectively examine concerns over americium losses during the melting and casting of metallic transmutation fuels calculations based on gaseous diffusion and a series of experiments were conducted. The resulting trend from calculations show that volatile species can effectively be contained using modest amounts of overpressure. This trend was verified when manganese and samarium containing charges were heated to 1450℃ under varying argon pressures. It was seen that losses of both of these volatile elements can be effectively controlled to below detectable levels using modest argon overpressures. Based on these results there is a high level of confidence that americium losses will also be effectively controlled by application of a modest amount of overpressure.