Basis of technical standard on fuel for sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor

The draft version of the technical standard on fuel for sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor has been prepared by JNES since 2008. It is prepared with the first aim of applying it to the safety licensing of the fuel used in the prototype LMFBR 'Monju.' The basic concept of the standard is at first actively discussed. The technical standard consists of several contents such as basic concept, purposes of fuel design and safety evaluation, fuel design bases, which contain evaluation items and the corresponding criteria, and methods of design evaluation. It is reported that the Monju current core will be upgraded in the near future, and that the startup of JSFR, which corresponds to the Japan demonstration LMFBR, is planned to be around 2025. The standard currently prepared shall, therefore, be modified in order to apply it to the fuels used in the upgraded Monju and JSFR cores. The work corresponding to this update is now being carried out energetically. This paper presents the version of the technical standard developed up to now. (author)