Irradiation Test of Parts of a Nuclear Fuel Assembly in HANARO

A material capsule system including a main capsule, fixing, control, cutting, and transport system was developed for an irradiation test of non-fissile materials in HANARO. The capsule system has been actively utilized for the various material irradiation tests requested by users from research institutes, universities, and the industries. For an evaluation of the neutron irradiation properties of the parts of a nuclear fuel assembly, the 05M-07U instrumented capsule was designed, fabricated, and successfully irradiated at HANARO. However, because of a limited number of specimens, the remaining space in the capsule was filled with various KAERI specimens for researches on a nuclear core and SMART materials, and specimens for one university. The capsule was loaded into the CT test hole of HANARO of a 30MW thermal output and the specimens were irradiated at 270 ∼ 400 .deg. C up to a fast neutron fluence of 5.7x1020(n/cm2) (E>1.0MeV). Based on the 05M-07U capsule irradiation, another instrumented capsule is under consideration for a more precise control of the irradiation temperature of a specimen and for a higher neutron fluence up to 1021(n/cm2) (E>1.0MeV)