EBR-II MOX Fuel Characterization Enabling ARES Phase I Testing

Abstract

Pretransient characterization was performed for the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II) mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel pellets from the SPA-2/-2B Operational Reliability Testing collaboration between Japan and the United States. Continued collaboration under the Advanced Reactor Experiments for Sodium Fast Reactor Fuels project will investigate the transient performance of these rods in the Transient Reactor Test facility at Idaho National Laboratory in the MOXTOP-THOR experiment. The results will fill a gap in existing transient performance data for MOX as these rods have a peak burnup of 14.3 at. % (~134.4 GWd/t) in the EBR-II. Fuel pellet properties were gathered from available resources and their irradiation and decay history evaluated. Further reactor physics calculations were performed to support the experiment design, reactor operations, and safety analyses necessary to enable the programmatic success of this effort. Of the three irradiated fuel pins, two will undergo transient testing, and all three will undergo post-irradiation examination. The methodology development and analysis activities utilized in this paper enable current experiment design work and provide the pathway through which measured data of this type can be further evaluated.

Keywords:

• Austenitic stainless steel
• EBR-II
• mixed-oxide fuel
• transient overpower test
• TREAT

Acknowledgments

This research made use of the resources of the HPC at INL, which is supported by the Office of Nuclear Energy of the DOE and the Nuclear Science User Facilities under contract DE-AC07-05ID14517.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.