The principal objectives of the Consumers High Power Density Fuel Development Program are to demonstrate the performance of uranium dioxide and stainless steel clad fuel, at high power density conditions and to explore processes leading to reductions in fuel fabrication costs. The latter objective is discussed in this report in which economic comparisons are made of the different processes used in fabricating fuel rods for the Consumers HPD program at APED. The fabrication costs of processes actually used in producing fuel rods are evaluated and compared economically in this report. These processes include pelletized fuel with pellet-to-clad gap (4 to 9 mil) and with gap reduced by swaging, and compacted powder fuel made by cold swaging, hot swaging, tandem rolling and vibratory compaction.
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