Remote Fabrication of DUPIC Fuel Pellets in a Hot Cell under Quality Assurance Program

Abstract

ÃÃThe Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) has been developing the Direct Use of Spent Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) Fuel in the CANada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) Reactors (DUPIC) fuel fabrication technology since 1992, and the basic DUPIC fuel fabrication process was established in 2002. In order to demonstrate the robustness of the DUPIC fuel fabrication process through the irradiation test, it is important that a Quality Assurance (QA) program should be in place before a fabrication of the DUPIC fuel. Therefore, the Quality Assurance Manual (QM) for the DUPIC fuel was developed on the basis of the Canadian standard, CAN3-Z299.2-85. This manual describes the quality management system applicable to the activities performed for the DUPIC fuel fabrication at KAERI. In order to demonstrate the DUPIC fuel fabrication technology and produce qualified DUPIC fuel pellets, the process qualification tests were performed, which include three pre-qualification tests and three qualification tests. The characteristics of the DUPIC fuel pellets such as the sintered density, grain size, and surface roughness were measured and evaluated in accordance with the QA procedures. The optimum fabrication process of the DUPIC fuel pellet was also established based on the qualification results. Finally a production campaign was carried out to fabricate the DUPIC fuel pellets at a batch size of 1 kg following the QA program. As a result of the production campaign, qualified DUPIC fuel pellets were successfully produced and, therefore, the remote fuel fabrication technology of the DUPIC fuel pellet was demonstrated.

Neutronic evaluation of CANDU-6 core using reprocessed fuels

“…The FNU comprises only fresh fuel bundles (zero burnup) while FRA and FRO contain reprocessed fuels which take into consideration the DUPIC cycle concept. In this cycle, after five cooling years of the Spent Fuel (SF) into the pool, it is shipped to a special plant for fuel bundles fabrication using dry processing, such as, AIROX or OREOX [12,18,19]. In this work, the composition of the spent fuel was obtained by previous studies [20], considering a typical PWR fuel with initial enrichment of 4.5% and a 50 GWd/MTU of burnup.…”

Measurement of homogeneity of U and Pu isotopes in PWR spent fuel powder mixture

“…The extracted pellets were oxidized for 10 h at 500 • C in an air atmosphere. Oxidized powders from each section were loaded into a Turbula Mixer (10-kg capacity, 35 rpm [14]) and then randomly sampled after different mixing times to evaluate the homogeneity of the mixture by measuring the ratio of the 134 Cs-and 137 Cs-gamma nuclides. Individual mixing tests for groups A, B, and C were performed before that for the total mixture (group D).…”