Alternative Fabrication Methods of Metal Fuel Slugs for SFR

Metal fuel slugs of U-Pu-Zr alloys for Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor (SFR) have conventionally been fabricated by a vacuum injection casting method. Recently, management of minor actinides (MA) became an important issue because direct disposal of the long-lived MA can be a long-term burden for a tentative repository up to several hundreds of thousand years. In order to prevent the evaporation of volatile elements such as Am, the alternative fabrication methods of metal fuel slugs have been studied applying gravity casting, improved injection casting, and centrifugal atomization method in KAERI, including melting under inert atmosphere. And then, metal fuel slugs and particulate metal fuel were examined with casting soundness, density, chemical analysis, particle size distribution and microstructurural characteristics. (author)