Abstract

There is a worldwide effort to develop nuclear fuels that are resistant to accidents such as loss of coolant in the reactor and the storage pools. In the United States, the Department of Energy is teaming with fuel vendors to develop accident tolerant fuels (ATF), which will resist the lack of cooling for longer periods of times than the current zirconium alloy - uranium dioxide system. General Electric (GE) and its partners is proposing to replace zirconium alloys cladding with an Iron-Chromium-Aluminum (FeCrAl) alloy such as APMT, since they are highly resistant to attack by steam up to the melting point of the alloy. FeCrAl alloys do not react with hydrogen to form stable hydrides as zirconium alloys do. Therefore, it is possible that more tritium may be released to the coolant with the use of FeCrAl cladding. This work discusses the formation of an alumina layer on the surface of APMT cladding as an effective barrier for tritium permeation from the fuel to the coolant across the cladding wall.

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