Development of vacuum continuous casting technology for uranium

The spent fuel disposal process of new dry storage concept has been developed in KAERI, in which the uranium metal abstracted by Li-reduction of spent fuel will be formed to long rods and then the rods will be arranged uniformly in canister. The objective of this study is to review the feasibility of applying the continuous casting method to cast a long rod with modifying the vacuum high-frequency induction furnace to vacuum continuous casting system, which was normally used to cast the uranium. The results are as follows. With the nozzle size of 3mm and the withdrawal speed of 3.5 mm/sec, the length of 160mm, diameter of 30 mm continuous casting uranium bar was successfully cast. This result shows there might be a possibility of continuous casting of uranium and helps the design and fabrication of new continuous casting equipment