Development of Fabrication Technology of Metallic Fuel by Injection Casting

Abstract

In the fuel fabrication of metallic fuel cycle, a molten fuel alloy is injected into a bundle of molds. After de-molding, the consolidated fuel slugs are processed to appropriate shapes. The key technology is injection casting for these processing steps. The technology development on fabrication of U-Zr binary alloy and qualification experiences are outlined in this paper. The design experiences of an engineering scale injection casting apparatus are also described. As the results of these experiences, it was demonstrated that the injection casting process is compact and easy to operate.

Metallic Fuel Fabrication Process Development in Remote Fuel Fabrication Mock-Up at KAERI

“…Manual fabrication of uranium or surrogate metallic fuel slugs has been conducted by injection casting of equipment at lab scale [12] or engineering scale [13] and by gravity casting of equipment at lab scale [14]. Such injection or gravity casting of equipment cannot be performed by remote operation in a shielded facility because parts are assembled all at once.…”