Analyzing a process for casting volatile actinides

Incorporating volatile actinides, mainly americium into a metallic fuel pin (MFP) has been a serious problem due to americium's high vapor pressure. Since induction heating provides high heat induction efficiency, induced stirring effect of the molten material and also combustion gas-free environment, an Induction Skull Melting (ISM) system was designed to develop fuels for transmutation concepts as part of the U.S. Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) program at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL). Through the development of the ISM system, the nuclear waste feedstock can be melted and injected into the mold for fabricating MFPs during the advanced nuclear fuel cycles. However, due to the nature of high vapor pressure derived from certain actinides, such as americium, only small fraction of the material is incorporated into the MFPs. From material accountability and objective of fuel fabrication standpoints, such process is undesirable. The major research here is to develop an ISM system through the CFD design and evaluate the induction melting and casting processes that can facilitate the incorporation of volatile actinide elements, particularly americium, into MFPs. The main phenomena in this system include: induction melting process, casting process and mass transfer process of americium. The induction melting and casting problem were analyzed numerically using the commercial finite element software package FIDAP (Fluent, Inc.). Various values of the material properties and input parameters were employed in the simulations and the results are compared in order to provide a better parameter estimation for the system design and real operation. (author)