Remote Fabrication of DUPIC Pellets at Hot-cell

Abstract

Since April 1999, DUPIC fuel has been fabricated using the spent PWR fuel discharged from the nuclear power plant Gori 1 in 1986 to develop DUPIC(Direct Use of spent PWR fuel In CANDU reactor) fuel cycle technology. DUPIC pellets are remotely fabricated by using DUPIC powder which was manufactured by the oxidation and reduction treatment of spent fuel pellets extracted from spent PWR fuel at hot-cell. The variations of the sintered density and the grain size were studied as the process parameters, such as the compaction pressure and the burn-up of the spent fuel were varied. The sintered densities of the fabricated DUPIC pellets range from 10.01 g/cm3 to 10.43 g/cm3, the average grain size ranges from 7.26 to 9.48μm. The surface roughness of the pellets are less than Ra 0.8μm by dry grinding process. The optimum DUPIC process has been established based on the results of the experiment. The DUPIC pellets for the irradiation test at the HANARO reactor were successfully fabricated with the optimized DUPIC processes.