Radionuclides release from re-irradiated fuel under high temperature and pressure conditions; -ray measurements of VEGA-5 test

Hidaka, Akihide   ; Kudo, Tamotsu ; Nakamura, Takehiko ; Kanazawa, Toru; Kiuchi, Toshio; Uetsuka, Hiroshi

The VEGA (Verification Experiments of radionuclides Gas/Aerosol release) program is being performed at JAERI to clarify mechanisms of radionuclides release from irradiated fuel during severe accidents and to improve source term predictability. The fifth VEGA-5 test was conducted in January 2002 to confirm the reproducibility of decrease in cesium release under elevated pressure that was observed in the VEGA-2 test and to investigate the release behavior of short-life radionuclides. The PWR fuel of 47GWd/tU after 8.2 years of cooling was re-irradiated at Nuclear Safety Research Reactor (NSRR) for 8 hours before the heat-up test. After that, the two pellets of 10.9g without cladding were heated up to about 2,900K at 1.0MPa under the inert He condition. The experiment reconfirmed the decrease in cesium release under elevated pressure. The release data on short-life radionuclides such as Ru-103 and Ba-140 that has never been observed in the previous VEGA tests without re-irradiation was obtained using the gamma ray measurement.