Prospects for improvement of fuel performance and fuel cycle cost in BWRs and PWRs in the nineties

Advanced Nuclear Fuels Corporation (ANF) has developed fuel assembly designs for BWRs and PWRs that can reduce fuel cycle costs by increasing uranium utilization in the reactors. Design features which have been used to increase uranium utilization include natural uranium axial blankets, 9x9 lattices with multiple water rods for BWRs and optimized water to fuel ratio lattices for PWRs. Gadolinia burnable absorber has been used in both BWR and PWR fuel designs to control power peaking which facilitates reactor operation for high burnup and extended cycles. New developments in fuel design and performance will further increase uranium utilization in the nineties. A high performance spacer grid design is being developed by ANF for use in PWRs and BWRs to increase coolant mixing efficiency with a resulting increase in critical heat flux and increased thermal margin which can be used to reduce fuel cycle costs. The development of more corrosion resistant cladding and other fuel design changes should enable fuel to attain assembly burnups of up to 45,000 MWd/MTU for BWRs and 60,000 MWd/MTU for PWRs with two year cycle lengths