Technical and Economic Viability of Ceramic Multi-Layer Composite SiC Cladding for LWRS

The Ceramic Multi-layer Composite (CMC) cladding has been under investigation at MIT for many years. Recently, increasing focus has been given to the modelling and performance of the cladding under PWR conditions for traditional and advanced fuel designs. These designs include use of annular pellets to reduce the centreline fuel temperature while including additional free volume to accommodate fission gases. Another option considered is adding a small amount of BeO to improve the thermal conductivity of the fuel. The reactor physics of both of these options were analyzed and found to have similar behaviour to a core with zircaloy cladding. These options often come at the cost of higher enrichment requirements. A third option was the replacement of the helium with liquid lead-bismuth in the fuel-cladding gap to improve its thermal conductivity. If the average fuel temperature and plenum pressure are considered as figures of merit, the BeO fuel was seen as the best option among the three designs. The economic implication of investing in CMC cladding for the current US operating reactors to improve the accident tolerance of nuclear fuel is analyzed. The CMC cladding is the only option among the proposed accident tolerant fuel concepts in the US that could result in a fuel enrichment savings, thus compatible with current enrichment infrastructure. The CMC cladding could also result in additional economic benefit by avoiding the costs that might be incurred following a severe accident. However, due to its long development period and likely higher cost of manufacturing compared to zircaloy, its economics merits are uncertain. The significant role that thermal conductivity degradation and swelling induced irradiation plays in performance of CMC cladding has already been documented. However, the impact of material properties on the performance of the neighbouring layers has been underrated and found recently to be critical for the viability of the concept. The current analysis using finite element software ADINA shows that by considering the existing irradiation data for composite fibres and CVD SiC, a promising design can be achieved with an inner monolith surrounded by a fibre composite that compress the inner monolith layer followed by an environmental CVD barrier coating. A sensitivity study of the thermo-mechanical performance of such three layer cladding and its comparison to a two layer design with an inner composite and thick outer monolith layer are also presented. (author)