Fuel safety limits; Experimental results and pending questions

Vitanza, C.*; Fuketa, Toyoshi

Considerable experimental effort has been made in the last decade to produce experimental data in support of the definition of fuel safety limits for a variety of fuel designs and considering the effect of burn-up. In particular, tests have been performed in specialized laboratories to address the fuel safety limits at conditions representative of design basis accidents, i.e. Reactivity Initiated Accident (RIA) and Loss-of-Coolant Accidents. In addition to assessing the effect of burn-up, the main focus of these tests has been on the safety performance of different cladding types, especially for PWR fuels. The main outcome of these efforts is discussed in this article.