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Advances in Metallic Nuclear Fuel

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Abstract

Metallic nuclear fuels have generated renewed interest for advanced liquid metal reactors (LMRs) due to their physical properties, ease of fabrication, irradiation behavior, and simple reprocessing. Irradiation performance for both steady-state and transient operations is excellent. Ongoing irradiation tests in Argonne-West’s Idaho-based Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II) have surpassed 100,000 MWd/T burnup and are on their way to a lifetime burnup of 150,000 MWd/T or greater. Metallic fuel also has a unique neutronic characteristic that enables benign reactor responses to loss-of-flow without scram and loss-of-heat-sink without scram accident conditions. This inherent safety potential of metallic fuel was demonstrated in EBR-II just one year ago. Safety tests performed in the reactor have also demonstrated that there is ample margin to fuel element cladding failure under transient overpower conditions. These metallic fuel attributes are key ingredients of the integral fast reactor (IFR) concept being developed at Argonne National Laboratory.

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Authors
  1. B. R. Seidel
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  2. L. C. Walters
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  3. Y. I. Chang
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Additional information

Authors’ Note: This work has been supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract W-31-109-ENG-308.

B.R. Seidel received his Ph.D. in materials science from Northwestern University in 1975. He is currently manager of Fuels Technology in the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II) Division of Argonne National Laboratory.

L.C. Walters received his Ph.D. in metallurgical engineering from Purdue University in 1966. He is currently the associate director of the EBR-II and is also associate program director for integral fast reactor (IFR) fuels development at Argonne National Laboratory.

Y.I. Chang received his Ph.D. in nuclear science from the University of Michigan in 1971. He is currently general manager of the IFR program at Argonne National Laboratory.

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Seidel, B.R., Walters, L.C. & Chang, Y.I. Advances in Metallic Nuclear Fuel. JOM 39, 10–13 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03258852

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