Engineering scale development test of MOX fuel fabrication technology to establish commercialized fast reactor fuel, 1; The O/M ratio preparation tests of sintered pellets

Takato, Kiyoto; Murakami, Tatsutoshi; Suzuki, Kiichi; Shibanuma, Kimikazu; Hatanaka, Nobuhiro; Yamaguchi, Bungo; Tobita, Yoshimasa; Shinozaki, Masaru; Iimura, Naoto; Okita, Takatoshi; et al.

JAEA-Technology 2013-026, 42 Pages, 2013/10

JAEA-Technology-2013-026.pdf:3.17MB

In order to cope with making a commercial fast reactor fuel burn-up higher, oxygen-to-metal (O/M) ratio in the fuel specification is designed to 1.95. As the test for the fabrication of such low O/M ratio pellets, two kinds of O/M ratio preparation tests of different reduction mechanism were done. In the first test, we evaluated the technology to prepare the O/M ratio low by annealing the sintered pellets in production scale. In addition, we know from past experience that O/M ratio of the sintered pellets can be reduced by residual carbon when the de-waxed pellets with high carbon content are sintered. Thus, in another test, the green pellets containing a large amount of organic additives were sintered and we evaluated the technology to produce the low O/M ratio sintered pellets by the reduction due to residual carbon. From the first test results, we found a tendency that the higher annealing temperature or the longer annealing time resulted in the lower O/M ratio. However, the amount of O/M ratio reduction was small and it is estimated that a substantial annealing time is necessary to prepare the O/M ratio to 1.95. It is considered that reducing O/M ratio by annealing was difficult because atmosphere gas containing oxygen released from pellets remained and the O/M ratio was changed to the value equilibrated with the gas having high oxygen potential. From another test results, it was confirmed that O/M ratio was reduced by the reduction due to residual carbon. We found that it was important to manage an oxygen potential of atmosphere gas in a sintering furnace low to reduce the O/M ratio effectively.

Confirmation tests for fabrication of low density MOX pellet for FBR

Murakami, Tatsutoshi; Suzuki, Kiichi; Hatanaka, Nobuhiro; Hanawa, Yukio; Shinozaki, Masaru; Murakami, Shinichi; Tobita, Yoshimasa; Kawasaki, Takeshi; Kobayashi, Yoshihito; Iimura, Naoto; et al.

JAEA-Technology 2008-017, 97 Pages, 2008/03

JAEA-Technology-2008-017.pdf:2.76MB

Low density MOX pellets for FBR "MONJU" have not been fabricated in Plutonium Fuel Fabricating Facility (PFPF) for these 9 years since completion of the first reload fuel for "MONJU" in 1995. In this period, about 60 % of machines in the pellet fabrication process of PFPF have been replaced with new ones, and fabrication of MOX pellets for "JOYO" has been continued using these machines. Concerning the feed MOX powders for "MONJU", the amount of decay heat has been increased with increase of accumulated Am-241 in this period. In addition, powder characteristic of recycled MOX powder which is one of feed powders, MH-MOX powder, UO powder and recycled MOX powder, was significantly changed by replacing former processing machine used for scrap recycling with improved one. Using MOX powder with increased decay heat and recycled MOX powder processed by new machine, a series of low density MOX pellet fabrication tests were conducted to confirm pellet fabrication conditions for current pellet fabrication machines from October in 2004 to August in 2006. As a conclusion, it was confirmed that low density MOX pellets could be fabricated using these feed powders and replaced machines by adjusting pellet fabrication conditions adequately. This report summarizes the results of a series of low density MOX pellet fabrication tests.

Development and maintenance performance evaluation of continuous sintering equipment with high maintainability for MOX fuel fabrication

Ichige, Hidekazu; Hatanaka, Nobuhiro; Iimura, Naoto; Okita, Takatoshi

no journal, , 

no abstracts in English

Development of visual inspection technology of pellets using machine learning, 2; Demonstration experiment using MOX pellets and consideration for introduction to production lines

Goto, Kenta; Hirooka, Shun; Horii, Yuta; Nakamichi, Shinya; Murakami, Tatsutoshi; Shibanuma, Kimikazu; Ono, Takanori; Yamamoto, Kazuya; Hatanaka, Nobuhiro; Okumura, Kazuyuki

no journal, , 

no abstracts in English