Behavior of high-burnup advanced LWR fuels under accident conditions

Amaya, Masaki  ; Udagawa, Yutaka  ; Narukawa, Takafumi ; Mihara, Takeshi  ; Taniguchi, Yoshinori 

In order to evaluate adequacy of present safety criteria and safety margins in terms of advanced fuels and provide a database for future regulation on them, JAEA started an extensive research program called ALPS-II program, which has been sponsored by NRA, Japan. This program is primarily composed of tests simulating a RIA and a LOCA on the high-burnup advanced fuels irradiated in commercial PWR or BWR. Recently, the failure limits of the high-burnup advanced fuels under RIA conditions were investigated at NSRR, and post-test examinations on the fuel rods after the pulse irradiation tests are being performed. In terms of the simulated LOCA test, integral thermal shock tests and high temperature oxidation tests were carried out at RFEF, and the fracture limits, high temperature oxidation rate, etc. of the high-burnup advanced fuel cladding were investigated. This paper mainly describes some recent experimental results obtained in this program with respect to RIA and LOCA.