High-temperature Oxidation Behaviors of the Combined Pre-hydrided/Pre-oxided HANA-4 Claddings at LOCA temperatures of 900 to 1200 .deg. C

Since 1997, KAERI has developed advanced cladding, which is named by HANA claddings, for the high burnup nuclear fuel. The HANA claddings were being tested to verify their performances in the out-of-pile and the inpile conditions. Until now, the test results in both conditions showed excellent when compared with a commercial reference cladding. High-temperature oxidation properties of HANA claddings were also characterized at the pre-oxideded and the pre-hydrided states as well as the as-fabricated state. The preoxide could affect the oxidation kinetics at LOCA temperatures, while the pre-hydride could not influence the high-temperature oxidation kinetics. In this study, it was investigated that the effects of the combined preoxide and pre-hydride, which could simulate a cladding state to be burned at the higher burn-up above 40,000 MWD/MTU, on the high-temperature oxidation behaviors at LOCA temperatures of 900 to 1200 .deg. C