Fabrication of nuclear fuel

Commercial nuclear fuel fabrication is focused on providing quality products. Throughout manufacturing attention is placed on the precise control of processes, procedures and tooling to reduce product variability. This paper describes the processes used to manufacture fuel for the advanced gas cooled reactor, light water reactor, fast breeder reactor and Magnox reactor systems at the BNFL, Springfields, and Westinghouse Columbia, USA, facilities. It covers the chemical purification and conversion stages of fuel production before describing the fabrication of both oxide and metallic fuel and gives a general overview of the technology used. Although the principles of fuel fabrication in terms of providing a cladding designed to be the primary envelope to encase the fuel are similar for each system, there are detailed differences in manufacturing route and cladding type which arise from differing reactor requirements. These, together with developments made in response to customer needs, are reviewed and the need to maintain a high purity reliable product with low variability at all stages in manufacture is emphasized throughout. (author)