Irradiated fuel examination program for advanced PWR fuels In Korea

In Korea, sixteen PWRs are in operation and eight PWRs are to be built by 2016 and eleven more PWRs' construction is planned by 2030. Sixteen operating PWRs comprise of 8 Optimized Power Reactors (OPRs) and eight Westinghouse type reactors (17x17, 16x16 and 14x14 types). Korea Nuclear Fuel (KNF) is fuel designing and manufacturing company, and has been supplying nuclear fuels for all operating PWRs in Korea since 1989 using imported fuel technology. From 1999, advanced fuels, PLUS7'TM', 16ACE7'TM' and 17ACE7'TM', have been jointly developed with foreign vendors. After successful in reactor performance verification (PSE) for lead test assemblies, PLUS7 has been commercially supplied to 8 OPRs from 2006. 16ACE7'TM' was supplied to Kori-2 in 2008, and 17ACE7'TM' will be supplied to 6 Westinghouse 17 type reactors from 2009. Now, additional fuel development program and fuel code development program are on going. Also, several operation strategies to increase fuel economy have been applied or scheduled such as high burnup, longer cycle operation, power uprating etc. Therefore, irradiated fuel's examination is indispensable to get more reliable fuel performance data, which are used in verification of advanced fuel, developing performance model, and evaluating quantitative design margin etc,. This paper describes the fuel examination program for the advanced PWR fuels in Korea