The development of lower enrichment fuels for Canadian research reactors

As part of the world wide move to proliferation resistant fuels, new fuels which use reduced enrichment uranium are being developed for use in the NRX and NRU reactors. A fuel consisting of particles of a USiAl alloy dispersed in an Al matrix has been selected for development along with Al-37 wt% U alloy and Al-U3O8 cermet as backup fuels. This report outlines the progress made in the development of the Al-USiAl and Al-37 wt% U. Results show that good quality extruded rods containing either fuel can be made with techniques similar to those used to fabricate the current NRX and NRU fuels. However, the new fuels will be more expensive to make. Although the oxidation behaviour of the Al-USiAl is not as good as that of the Al-U alloys, its corrosion behaviour in high temperature water does not seem much worse. The oxidation and aqueous corrosion of A-37 wt% U are not much different from those of the Al-U alloys currently used. (author)