Fuel performance under different PWR conditions. An overview of the annealing test facilities at the CEA Cadarache

The main goal of this paper is to review the general aspects of the specific experimental devices implemented at the LECA-STAR laboratory at the Cadarache CEA centre and devoted to the studies of mechanisms which promote fission product out of irradiated fuels, FPs behaviours inside the fuel and fuels behaviour itself. The present paper is divided into three parts according to the main goals of the research programs performed on the corresponding facility: (a) Fission Gas Release (FGR) from high burn up fuel under both normal and off-normal (reactivity initiated accident (RIA), loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA)...) operating conditions, (b) Fission Product (FP) release and transport under severe-accident conditions (i.e. up to the loss of fuel integrity) and (c) fuel microstructural changes, potential cladding failure, radionuclide source terms... under conditions representative of long term dry storage and geological disposal. (author)