Phenix in the future - New prospects

After 17 yr of power operation, Phenix has proved to be not only a demonstration plant for liquid-metal reactors but also an irradiation facility for experimental programs. The main objectives are: (1) to continue the burnup increase of the standard fuel, (2) to develop new experimental facilities, and (3) to undertake an industrial production of radioisotopes. In the evolution of the Phenix core, an average core burnup of 100,000 MWd/t oxide has been achieved (calculated from the peak values of each subassembly). The next objective of 150,000 MWd/t oxide requires some substantial modification of the fuel management to keep only one fuel enrichment (enrichment of the external zone, 30%). The subassemblies will be transferred in core during irradiation. Two new experimental facilities are being studied. The Mesiphix system, which will be available in 1992, is for monitoring pin failure in internal storage. The goal is to determine the behavior of a failure or a leak in internal storage for long resident times. The second experimental facility is the experimental loop called Bauphix. The installation of a self-contained loop allows studying the behavior of a pin bundle operating in abnormal conditions. Various tests carried out for 5 yr have proved that industrial production of 60Co is feasible in the Phenix reactor. The objective is to produce 1.5 x 106 Ci/yr with a specific activity of 50 Ci/g