PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS OF HIGH BURNUP ZIRLO CLADDING FUEL RODS

摘要

Abstract- Some high burnup (HBU) ZIRLO® cladding fuelrods are being examined at Oak Ridge NationalLaboratory (ORNL) in support of the Department ofEnergy’s dry storage and transportation research. Therods were provided by Dominion’s North Anna NuclearPower Plant and have a rod-average burnup rangingfrom 48 to 59 GWd/MTU. Detailed examinations arebeing conducted in the Oak Ridge National Laboratoryhot cell on the high-burnup ZIRLO cladding rods,including rod internal pressure, fission gas compositionand release rates, length measurement, eddy current (EC)oxide-thickness measurement, profilometry, visualinspection, metallography, and hot vacuum extractionhydrogen measurements of the cladding.This paper presents some performance characteristics ofthe ZIRLO clad rods obtained in ORNL to date, includingaxial growth, in-reactor corrosion, rod internal pressureand fission gas release, and compares them withhistorical data available. Especially the data will becompared with the pool side and hotcell post irradiationexamination (PIE) data from the rods irradiated in thesame core in the North Anna plant.