The Development of Xenon Diffusivity Measurement for Irradiated Ceramic Fuels with Low Burnup

The fission gas diffusion coefficient is an important factor to study fission gas release, which is a common occurrence for fuel performance. Especially, Xe-133 is a good tracer and recommended in a post-irradiation annealing test. Annealing equipments for fuel was set up in IMEF in KAERI and several tests for various oxide fuels have been carried out. To obtain the atomic diffusivity of Xe-133, all fuel samples were irradiated with very low burnup (<0.1 MW.d.t-1 U) to prohibit creation of fission bubbles. Therefore, these tests were not performed in a hot cell but a service area due to low radiation doses. The amount of production and release of Xe-133 were calculated by using ORIGEN-2 code. Based on the Booth theory, diffusion coefficients at each temperature were obtained. Diffusion coefficients of Xe-133 in all fuel samples were compared and analysed by a published data. Additionally, we consider installation of equipments in a hot cell for a high burnup fuel sample. (author)