Safety criteria for plate type fuels in small power reactors

Full text: Plate type fuels are generally used in research reactor, and could also be used in small or large power reactors, but would require that a comprehensive set of safety criteria be established. In this work, a group of safety criteria is established for the utilization of plate type fuels in small power reactors taking into consideration the characteristics of power and research reactors. Several alternatives of plate type fuels are considered for using in small power reactors: dispersions of UO2 in stainless steel, of UO2 in zircaloy, and of U-Mo alloy in zircaloy, and monolithic plates of U-Mo cladded with zircaloy. Given the strong dependency of radiation damage with temperature, the heat transfer safety criteria were verified for all the alternatives, namely the DNBR, peak clad temperature to avoid clad embrittlement, meat temperature to avoid swelling, fuel temperature to avoid meat matrix reaction and coolant critical speed. It was found that all alternatives meet the safety criteria including the 0.5 mm monolithic U-Mo plate cladded with zircaloy. (author)