The development of nuclear fuel for the future

The ultimate goal of the project is to develop nuclear fuels which can improve the safety and economics of nuclear power generation and enhance the effective use of uranium resources. The fuels are aimed to be utilized in the successive power plants after the year 2000. To achieve these goals, it is necessary to analyse the characteristics of advanced concept fuels based on currently available fuel design and manufacturing technology and to establish new design and manufacturing technology for the new concept fuels. This year is the beginning of the project and the study focused on 1) the technical feasibility evaluation of the application of existing technology to advanced concept fuel such as extra-high BU fuel or other improved feature fuel, 2) the analysis of the domestic and foreign circumstances for advanced concept fuel development and the drawing-out of plans for its development, and 3) the securing of basic technology for the development. For the analysis of nuclear fuel characteristics, the expected change in design parameters at high BU has been evaluated and fuel cycle evaluation models were improved for the development of fuel cycle strategy with high BU fuel. For the verification and improvement of design methodology, technical feasibility of the application of the existing nuclear design system to advanced fuel has been analysed and thermal-hydraulic analysis methodology is under improvement for more thermal design margin. For the review of the state-of-the-art and the study of developmental plans, the trends and circumstances of nuclear fuel development in foreign countries have been analysed and several domestic developmental plans were identified. For the development of advanced nuclear fuel fabrication technology, preliminary experiments for the mixing of additives with UO2 powder were performed and the state-of-the-art of new fabrication techniques which are under development in recent years were analysed. For the study on the material properties of advanced nuclear fuel, the analysis method of non-stoichiometry in fuel pellets is under development and the thermodynamic characteristics of the advanced fuel pellet was investigated. (Author)