Development status of microcell UO3 pellet for accident-tolerant fuel

• Published in: Nuclear engineering and technology pp. 253 - 258
• Main Authors: 김동주, 김건식, 김동석, 오장수, 김종훈, 양재호, 구양현
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 한국원자력학회 01.03.2018
• Subjects: 원자력공학
• ISSN: 1738-5733; 2234-358X

A microcell UO2 pellet, as an accident-tolerant fuel pellet, is being developed to enhance the accidenttolerance of nuclear fuels under accident conditions as well as the fuel performance under normaloperation conditions. Improved capture-ability for highly radioactive and corrosive fission product (Cs and I) is the distinctfeature of a ceramic microcell UO2 pellet, and the enhanced pellet thermal conductivity is that of ametallic microcell UO2 pellet. The fuel temperature can be effectively decreased by enhanced thermalconductivity. In this study, the material concepts of metallic and ceramic microcell UO2 pellets were designed, andthe fabrication process of microcell UO2 pellets embodying the designed concept was developed. Wesuccessfully implemented the microcell UO2 pellets and produced microcell UO2 pellets. In addition, an assessment of the out-of-pile properties of a microcell UO2 pellet was performed, andthe in-reactor performance and behavior of the developed microcell pellets were evaluated through aHalden irradiation test. According to the expectations, the excellent performance of the microcell UO2pellets was confirmed by the online measurement data of the Halden irradiation test. KCI Citation Count: 10