Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative AFC-1D, AFC-1G and AFC-1H Irradiation Report

Abstract

The U. S. Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) seeks to develop and demonstrate the technologies needed to transmute the long-lived transuranic actinide isotopes contained in spent nuclear fuel into shorter-lived fission products, thereby dramatically decreasing the volume of material requiring disposition and the long-term radiotoxity and heat load of high-level waste sent to a geologic repository. The AFC-1 irradiation experiments on transmutation fuels are expected to provide irradiation performance data on non-fertile and low-fertile fuel forms specifically, irradiation growth and swelling, helium production, fission gas release, fission product and fuel constituent migration, fuel phase equilibria, and fuel-cladding chemical interaction. Contained in this report are the to-date physics evaluations performed on three of the AFC-1 experiments; AFC-1D, AFC-1G and AFC-1H. The AFC-1D irradiation experiment consists of metallic non-fertile fuel compositions with minor actinides for potential use in accelerator driven systems and AFC-1G and AFC-1H irradiation experiments are part of the fast neutron reactor fuel development effort. These experiments are high burnup analogs to previously irradiated experiments and are to be irradiated to = 20 atom % burnup. Results of the evaluations show that AFC-1D will remain in the ATR for approximately 100 additional effective full power days (EFPDs), and AFC-1G and AFC-1H for approximately 300 additional EFPDs in order to reach the desired programmatic burnup. The specific irradiation schedule for these tests will be determined based on future physics evaluations and all results will be documented in subsequent reports.