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Advances by the Integral Fast Reactor Program De91 011174 I A // / A / ANL/CP--71374 ADVANCES BY THE INTEGRAL FAST REACTOR PROGRAM DE91 011174 M. J. Lineberry, D. R. Pedersen, of the EBR-11 reactor reactor with a uranium alloy metallic L. C. Waiters, and J. E. Cahalan fuel. ll Argonne National Laboratory f 9700 S. Cass Avenue The IFR safety approach for the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) Argonne, Illinois 60439 concept capitalizes on the characteristics of metallic fuels and of pool-type liquid metal reactors to provide enhanced ABSTRACT safety margins. The fundamental safety approach guiding The advances by the Integral Fast Reactor Program at the IFR program is: Argonne National Laboratory are the subject of this paper. ; 1. A simple, economic, high quality fuel system must The Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) is an advanced liquid- ', be developed which will allow normal operation of metal-cooled reactor concept being developed at Argonne j reprocessed fuel with minimal fuel failures. National Laboratory. The advances stressed in the paper : 2. The metallic fuel system must be tolerant of fuel include fuel irradiation performance, improved passive , failures and local faults. safety, ^nd the development of a prototype fuel cycle ' 3. The reactor design must be such that for any system facility. failure, including those in the balance of plant, no active systems have to operate to maintain the INTRODUCTION reactor in a safe state. The Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) (Ref. 1) is an advanced 4. Even though the reactor can achieve passive shut- liquid-metal-cooled reactor concept being developed at down for any system failure, the reactor should be Axgonne National Laboratory. The two major goals of the provided with redundant and diverse safety grade IFR program are improved economics and enhanced safety. scram systems. The IFR program is specifically responsible for the 5. The reactor should be provided with redundant and irradiation performance, advanced core design methodology, diverse decay heat removal systems designed such safety analysis and testing, and development of the fuel that at least one of them would be able to remove cycle (including the fuel cycle facility) for metal fuel for , decay heat considering a full range of events such as the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Liquid Metal i a large secondary-side sodium fire. Reactor Program. The basic elements of the IFR concept 6. To provide a level of safety consistent with the high are: (1) metallic fuel, (2) liquid sodium cooling, (3) level of safety achieved for protection from internal modular, pool-type reactor configuration, (4) an integral events, the reactor should be designed for a low fuel cycle, based upon pyro-metallurgical processing and level of risk from external events, i.e., earthquakes. injection-cast fuel fabrication, with the fuel cycle facility 7. To provide defense-in-depth, the reactor/containment collocated if so desired. design must include features to mitigate the con- sequences of core melt accidents. In the IFR concept, the liquid sodium coolant operates at 8. The fuel cycle design and reduction of the long term atmospheric pressure, and maintains a design point margin waste problem by actinide recycle must be an inte- to boiling greater than 400K (700°F). This eliminates the gral part of the safety posture in reducing risk from need for a pressurized primary system and thick-walled IFR operations. ' pressure vessels. With its high thermal conductivity and 9. The fuel cycle design must be responsive to the U.S. specific heat capacity, liquid metal cooling enables the IFR goals for proliferation resistance. to operate at decay heat levels in natural circulation, without the need for forced flow. Liquid metal cooling In this paper we will concentrate on the advances in permits a compact core configuration that complements the Integral Fast Reactor Program in three areas 1) fuel neutronic advantages of metal fuel and an enhanced fast irradiation performance, 2) safety, and 3) fuel cycle design. neutron energy spectrum. These response characteristics are achieved by use of inherent mechanisms, hydraulic, and IFR Fuel Irradiation Advances neutronic reactor system properties, which are determined Metallic fuels were the first fuels used for liquid metal by the choice and arrangement of reactor materials. cooled-fast reactors (LMR's). In the late 1960's world- wide interest turned toward ceramic LMR fuels before the The most significant safety aspects of the IFR program re- full potential of metallic fuel could be achieved. sult from its unique fuel design. A ternary alloy of Development of metallic fuels continued throughout the uranium, plutonium, and zirconium, developed at Argonne, 1970's at Argonne National Laboratory's Experimental is based on experience gained through more than 25 years Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II) because EBR-II continued to The submitted manuscript has been authored by a contractor of the U. S. Government under contract No. W-31-109-ENG-38. MASTER Accordingly, the U. S. Government retains a (fa nonexclusive, royalty-free license to publish DISTRIBUTION OF TJJJS DOCUMENT IS UNLIMITED or reproduce the published form of this contribution, or allow others to do so, for U. S. Government purposes. DISCLAIMER This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or use- fulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any spe- cific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufac- turer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recom- mendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United Slates Government or any agency thereof. Proceedings of the American Power Conference be fueled with a metallic fuel. During the period of is the accumulation of fission product gases in bubbles development in the 1970's at EBR-II, the performance dis- where the gas pressure increases with burnup. As the advantages of metallic fuel were satisfactorily resolved and bubbles grow, the surface tension is overcome and the fuel as well additional attributes of metallic fuel were discovered • matrix flows causing swelling. It is shown theoretically (Ref. 2). Excellent breeding performance and high burnup that when the fuel swelling reaches about 30% the bubbles potential were accepted attributes of metallic fuel. An must interconnect, independent of size and/or number aggressive program was initiated in 19S3 to prove commer- density. Therefore, it was postulated that if the gap cial feasibility of all aspects of the IFR concept including between fuel and cladding were large enough to allow the demonstrating that U-Pu-Zr metallic fuel could meet the fuel to swell to about 30% before fuel-cladding contact then requirements of the IFR concept. the bubbles would interconnect, release the accumulated fis- sion gas, and thus remove, or reduce the primary cause of The rationale for the choice of the alloy U-Pu-Zr and the | fuel swelling. A large gas plenum above the fuel captures design aspects of metallic fuel, which allow high burnup, the fission gas and keeps the stress reasonably low on the will be summarized in the following. A fuel that contains . cladding. It was demonstrated in the late 1960's that inter- piutonium is required for a breeder reactor using I)238 as the connection of porosily wiih subsequent fission gas release fertile material; however, plutonium and uranium-plutonium consistently occurred for smeared densities less than 75% alloys have low solidus temperatures that make practical for a range of metallic fuel alloys. reactor designs impossible. Thus, an alloy addition was sought that would increase the solidus temperature of the The IFR concept restored interest in metallic fuel. Addit- U-Pu alloys. Several elements (chromium, molybdenum, ional effort remained in 19S3 to demonstrate that U-Pu-Zr titanium, and zirconium) alloy well in this system and fuel was a commercially viable option. Many of the effectively increase the solidus temperature. However, feasibility questions associated with the performance of zirconium was unique because it appeared to result in metallic fuel_ had been answered by 19S3, as discussed enhanced compatibility between the fuel and the austenitic above, and in fact additional positive attributes of metallic stainless steel cladding materials (Ref. 3). Without fuel had been discovered, such as the robust performance zirconium the cladding elements, nickel and iron, readily during transient operation. From 1969 to 1983, no U-Pu-Zr diffuse into the fuel to form compositions that result in fuel had been irradiated and there was no facility available lowering of the solidus temperatures adjacent to the to fabricate the fuel. The data base was weak in 1983 with cladding. The addition of zirconium appeared to suppress only 18 U-Pu-Zr fuel pins irradiated to about 4 at% burnup. the inter-diffusion of fuel and cladding components. The In addition to the lack of demonstration that the U-Pu-Zr allowable concentrations of zirconium in the U-Pu-Zr alloys fuel would reach high burnup, a number of other issues was limited to about 10 wt% for plutonium concentrations required further study for complete resolution. of up to 20 wt% because too much zirconium would result in liquidus temperatures that were too high for the A fuel performance demonstration program was designed in fabrication of the fuel. The fabrication technique used for 1983 to gain the information required to eventually license metallic fuel is to injection cast the fuel into the quartz metallic fuel.
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