Present status of ZrC coated fuel particle development for very high temperature reactors in JAEA

Sawa, Kazuhiro; Ueta, Shohei   ; Aihara, Jun 

The Very-High-Temperature Reactor (VHTR) is the one of the most promising candidates for the Generation IV Nuclear Energy System. The VHTR fuel should exhibit excellent safety performance up to burn-up of about 15 to 20 % fissions per initial metal atom (FIMA) and fluence of 610m (E0.1MeV). There is no experimental data which has proved the intactness of conventional SiC-coated fuel particles under such severe condition. Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) has developed Zirconium carbide (ZrC)-coated fuel particle, the ZrC coating layer of which is expected to maintain its intactness under higher temperature and burn-up compared with SiC-coating layer. JAEA started (1) ZrC-coating process development by large-scale coater, (2) inspection method development of ZrC coating and (3) irradiation test and post irradiation experiment of ZrC coated particles. This paper presents present status of ZrC-coated fuel particle development in JAEA.