Irradiation of Solid Breeder Pellets, Spheres and Single Crystals to Moderately High Burn-Up Levels in a Fast Neutron Flux FUBR-1B in BEATRIX-I

摘要

A solid tritium breeder irradiation experiment has been designed and fabricated. It began irradiation for 600 full power days in the fast neutron flux of the EBR-II reactor in order to obtain swelling, tritium retention, and stability data. Lithium ceramic pellets, spheres and single crystals from Europe, Japan and the USA are contained within 19 closed capsules. Burn-up levels from 10 to 35 x 10 sup 20 captures/cc will be obtained during this irradiation at ''isothermal'' temperatures on 1 cm diameter pellets from approximately 500 to 900 deg C. Larger diameter pellets (1.6 to 2.3 cm) will produce large temperature gradients and centerline temperatures of over 1200 deg C. Characterization of these materials provided an assessment of current fabrication capabilities which exist for these materials. 9 refs., 2 figs., 2 tabs. (ERA citation 13:023913)