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Core Materials

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Fast Spectrum Reactors

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Abstract

The most hostile environment to be found in any nuclear reactor system is inside the core. Relative to a thermal reactor, the high flux, high burnup, and high temperature conditions encountered in a fast spectrum reactor place severe requirements on the materials selected for core design. Hence, considerable effort has been devoted to understanding and improving the performance of fuels and structural component candidates for fast spectrum reactor use.

This chapter is included to provide a more complete materials treatment of several of the general observations offered in Chapter 2 and of the design discussions included in Chapters 8, 9, and 10. However, because so much study has been given to the materials that comprise the primary building blocks of the fast spectrum reactor, it is not possible in an introductory text of this type to treat this subject with the degree of detail that a materials-oriented student would wish.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    It is possible, of course, that such slowing down atoms could relocate in a vacancy position. This is called vacancy annihilation.

  2. 2.

    This normally causes densification.

  3. 3.

    A stoichiometric material contains an atomic ratio exactly equal to its chemical formula. Hypostoichiometric refers to a deficiency in the non-heavy metal constituent, and hyperstoichiometric refers to an excess in the non-heavy metal constituent.

  4. 4.

    Mixed oxide fuels undergo a volumetric increase of approximately 10% upon melting.

  5. 5.

    See Section 8.2 for a discussion of equiaxed and columnar grain development.

  6. 6.

    While most of the factors governing fission gas retention and redistribution are reasonably well understood, disagreement among ceramicists still remains over some of them [4]. Fuel temperature is only one of several governing factors.

  7. 7.

    Another difficulty of the carbide fuel fabrication process is the necessity to keep oxygen concentrations at very low levels. Uranium will preferably oxidize, and the presence of oxygen could produce unwanted UO2 as well as posing a fire hazard.

  8. 8.

    The term fuel “swelling” is somewhat ambiguous when applied to uranium metal because much of the observed growth over certain temperature ranges is due to the highly anisotropic behavior of uranium instead of fission product generation. However, the net effects of temperature and burnup are often referred to as swelling in the literature.

  9. 9.

    Fissium (Fs) is an equilibrium concentration of fission product elements left by the pyrometallurgical reprocessing cycle designed specifically for EBR-II. Nominal 5 wt.% fissium consists of 2.4 wt.% Mo, 1.9 wt.% Ru, 0.3 wt.% Rh, 0.2 wt.% Pd, 0.1 wt.% Zr, and 0.01 wt.% Nb.

  10. 10.

    Controlled venting could be purposely designed into the system.

  11. 11.

    Refer ahead to Fig. 11.19 for an explanation of the 0.2% offset concept.

  12. 12.

    This last requirement is a controversial point among materials specialists.

  13. 13.

    Inconel® is a registered trademark of International Nickel Company.

  14. 14.

    From page 28 of Ref. [29].

  15. 15.

    Considerable interest exists in venting the absorber pins in order to avoid the necessity of a plenum to contain the He buildup.

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  1. Indira Gandhi Center for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu, India

    Baldev Raj

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    Alan E. Waltar

  2. NuScale Power, Inc., NE Circle Blvd 1000, Corvallis, 97330, Oregon, USA

    Donald R. Todd

  3. Dept. Nuclear Engineering, Texas A & M University, College Station, 77843-3133, Texas, USA

    Pavel V. Tsvetkov

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Raj, B. (2012). Core Materials. In: Waltar, A., Todd, D., Tsvetkov, P. (eds) Fast Spectrum Reactors. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9572-8_11

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