Behavior of high burnup LWR fuels during design-basis accidents; Key observations and an outline of the coming program

Fuketa, Toyoshi; Nagase, Fumihisa ; Sugiyama, Tomoyuki ; Amaya, Masaki  

In order to evaluate adequacy of present safety criteria and safety margins and to provide a database for future regulation on higher burnup UO and MOX fuels, new cladding and pellets, an extensive program has been performed in the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA). The research program "Advanced LWR Fuel Performance and Safety" (ALPS) is comprised primarily of tests simulating a reactivity-initiated accident (RIA) and a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) on high burnup fuels shipped from European nuclear power plants. The paper describes key observations in the first phase (FY2002 to FY2007) and an outline of the second phase (FY2008 to FY2013) of the program.