4 research outputs found
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Performance of refractory alloy-clad fuel pins
This paper discusses objectives and basic design of two fuel-cladding tests being conducted in support of SP-100 technology development. Two of the current space nuclear power concepts use conventional pin type designs, where a coolant removes the heat from the core and transports it to an out-of-core energy conversion system. An extensive irradiation testing program was conducted in the 1950's and 1960's to develop fuel pins for space nuclear reactors. The program emphasized refractory metal clad uranium nitride (UN), uranium carbide (UC), uranium oxide (UO/sub 2/), and metal matrix fuels (UCZr and BeO-UO/sub 2/). Based on this earlier work, studies presented here show that UN and UO/sub 2/ fuels in conjunction with several refractory metal cladding materials demonstrated high potential for meeting space reactor requirements and that UC could serve as an alternative but higher risk fuel
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SODIUM FLOW TEST OF 7-ROD CLUSTER IN SODIUM COMPONENTS EVALUATION LOOP (SCEL).
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MARK I PROTOTYPIC FTR FUEL ELEMENT SUBASSEMBLY SODIUM FLOW TEST.
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Performance testing of refractory alloy-clad fuel elements for space reactors
Two fast reactor irradiation tests, SP-1 and SP-2, provide a unique and self-consistent data set with which to evaluate the technical feasibility of potential fuel systems for the SP-100 space reactor. Fuel pins fabricated with leading cladding candidates (Nb-1Zr, PWC-11, and Mo-13Re) and fuel forms (UN and UO/sub 2/) are operated at temperatures typical of those expected in the SP-100 design. The first US fast reactor irradiated, refractory alloy clad fuel pins, from the SP-1 test, reached 1 at. % burnup in EBR-II in March 1985. At that time selected pins were discharged for interim examination. These examinations confirmed the excellent performance of the Nb-1Zr clad uranium oxide and uranium nitride fuel elements, which are the baseline fuel systems for two SP-100 reactor concepts