The development and manufacture of MOX fuels in the United Kingdom

The UKAEA and BNFL have, over the last 25 years, carried out extensive development work on the manufacture of uranium-plutonium oxide fuels initially for thermal reactors and latterly for the UK's fast reactor project. This paper outlines the effects of the important fabrication variables on the characteristics of mixed oxide fuels and shows how the information has been used to develop a new facility for the manufacture of UPu nuclear fuels at Windscale. The facility is suitable for the manufacture of developmental quantities of MOX fuel at a scale of up to 500 kg of pelleted fast reactor fuel per year using various flowsheets. Although the facility is designed adopting a ''hands on'' philosophy, comprehensive shielding allows the handling of recycled plutonium derived from high burn-up fuel with more difficult isotopic composition than that of fast reactor composition used to date. (author). 6 refs, 3 figs, 2 tabs