About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2026 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
| Symposium
|
Metallic Fuels - Design, Fabrication, and Characterization
|
| Presentation Title |
Analysis of Higher Burnup Sodium Free Annular U-10Zr Fuel |
| Author(s) |
Geoffrey L. Beausoleil, Tiankai Yao, Alex Swearingen, Jacob Hirschhorn, Ryan Sweet |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Geoffrey L. Beausoleil |
| Abstract Scope |
While sodium bonded metallic fuels have excellent performance characteristics, one of the drawbacks with this fuel design is mixed waste handling of spent fuel due to the reactivity of the bond sodium. In order to remove the sodium, the fuel must have an adequate mechanism to ensure heat conduction between the fuel and cladding. To do this, the fuel geometry is changed to have a hollow anulus so that the fuel begins irradiation in mechanical contact with cladding. Through the use of the Fission Accelerated Steady-state Test method, several annular fuel rodlets have been irradiated to burnups of 4, 10, and 15%FIMA. Post irradiation characterization results are presented to show fuel microstructure and fuel-cladding interface comparisons to conventional fuel designs. BISON analyses are also presented to demonstrate gaps in the existing performance models. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Planned: |
| Keywords |
Nuclear Materials, |