AFC-1 Fuel Rodiet Fission Power Deposition Validation in ATR. ANS 2008 Winter Meeting

摘要

One of the viable options of long-term geological disposal of the nuclear power reactors generated spent fuel is to extract plutonium, the minor actinides (MA) and potentially long-lived fission products from the spent fuel and transmute them into short-lived or stable radionuclides in an appropriate reactor for the reduction of the radiological toxicity of the nuclear waste stream. An important component of that technology will be a non-fertile/ low-fertile actinide transmutation fuel form containing the plutonium, neptunium, americium (and possibly curium) isotopes to be transmuted. Such advanced fuel forms, especially ones enriched in the long-life minor actinide (LLMA) elements (i.e., Np, Am, Cm), have minimal irradiation performance data available from which to establish a transmutation fuel form design. Recognizing these needs, an Advanced Fuel Cycle test series-1 (AFC-1) irradiation test on a variety of candidate fuel forms is now being conducted in Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The first advanced fuel experiment (AFC-1) has been finalized and the test assembly analyzed for insertion and irradiation in ATR. The ATR core consists of a serpentine and rotationally symmetric fuel assembly about the z-axis of the core center.