In-core integrity of the 4.8gU/cc silicide fuels fabricated by B&W and CERCA

Yanagisawa, Kazuaki

The silicide fuel fabricated by B&W (one TC) and that fabricated by CERCA (no TC) was pulsed with the reactivity of 1.43 dollar ($). The energy deposition was 115 cal per gram for the former and 98 cal per gram for the latter. In core transient fuel performance of the two was directly compared, using the data obtained from 4.8g/cc silicide fuels as the references. (1) The onset of DNB temperature for the B&W fuel was 154 C, which was the lowest among the references. (2) During the quenching, the B&W fuel had 269 C for the temperature difference (94 C for failure) and 0.079s for the time to quench (0.13s for failure). This situation brought the quench failure to the fuel. The failure mode was the through plate cracking. The CERCA fuel did not fail not telling the details due to the no in-core instrument.