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Laser-heating and Radiance Spectrometry for the Study of Nuclear Materials in Conditions Simulating a Nuclear Power Plant Accident
Published on: December 14, 2017
SUPERFACT: A Model Fuel for Studying the Evolution of the Microstructure of Spent Nuclear Fuel during
Thierry Wiss1, Oliver Dieste1,2, Emanuele De Bona1
1Joint Research Centre, European Commission, P.O. Box 2340, 76125 Karlsruhe, Germany.
Abstract:
The transmutation of minor actinides (in particular, Np and Am), which are among the main contributors to spent fuel α-radiotoxicity, was studied in the SUPERFACT irradiation. Several types of transmutation UO2-based fuels were produced, differing by their minor actinide content (241Am, 237Np, Pu), and irradiated in the Phénix fast reactor. Due to the high content in rather short-lived alpha-decaying actinides, both the archive, but also the irradiated fuels, cumulated an alpha dose during a laboratory time scale, which is comparable to that of standard LWR fuels during centuries/millenaries of storage. Transmission Electron Microscopy was performed to assess the evolution of the microstructure of the SUPERFACT archive and irradiated fuel. This was compared to conventional irradiated spent fuel (i.e., after years of storage) and to other 238Pu-doped UO2 for which the equivalent storage time would span over centuries. It could be shown that the microstructure of these fluorites does not degrade significantly from low to very high alpha-damage doses, and that helium bubbles precipitate.
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