NUCLEAR FUEL PELLET DESIGN TO MINIMIZE DIMENSIONAL CHANGES

摘要

NUCLEAR FUEL PELLET DESIGNTO MINIMIZE DIMENSIONAL CHANGESABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSUREAn improved nuclear fuel composition characterizedas a mixture of the dioxide of uranium and plutonium withpores of specified sizes and volumes of each size. The vol-ume of pores of each size are adjusted so that as each groupof pores of each size is removed by the nuclear fissioninduced process of densification, the volume removed isbalanced by the volume added by the nuclear fission inducedprocess of solid state swelling. This fuel composition isdimensionally stable in-pile to high burnups because therate of pore removal is matched to the rate of swelling.