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Nuclear Fuel Cycle
Published in Kenneth D. Kok, Nuclear Engineering Handbook, 2016
Kenneth D. Kok, Paul J. Fehrenbach, Alistair I. Miller
As part of developing the fast reactor in the United States, the DOE operated the EBR-II reactor in Idaho from the 1960s into the 1980s. During operation of the reactor, the full fuel cycle was demonstrated including the reprocessing system called “pyroprocessing” (Chapter 14). The system including the reactor and the reprocessing facility is referred to as the IFR (Integral Fast Reactor). The process, its development, and its integration with fast reactor operations is described in detail in the book Plentiful Energy—The Story of the Integral Fast Reactor (Till and Chang, 2011).
Qualification of Metallic Fuel Data for Advanced SFR Applications
Published in Nuclear Technology, 2023
Abdellatif M. Yacout, Kun Mo, Aaron Oaks, Michael Billone, Yinbin Miao, Jeffrey Alicz
The licensing of these reactors will require comprehensive knowledge of fuel performance at fast neutron spectrum conditions at various burnups and temperatures in a sodium coolant environment. Fortunately, U-Zr/U-Pu-Zr metallic fuels were studied extensively in the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II) (Ref. 7) and the Fast Flux Test Facility8 (FFTF), in particular during the period between 1984 and 1994 when extensive metallic alloy fuel data were generated during the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) program.9,10 Recovery of this metallic fuel knowledgebase is being performed at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) by developing and maintaining a database, the Fuels Irradiation & Physics Database11,12 (FIPD). The FIPD is an organized collection of mostly EBR-II test pin–related data and documentation that correspond to a variety of experiments with different goals and objectives aimed at demonstrating the qualification of the fuel to be used in SFRs under different operating conditions. The fuel data include three major components: (1) fuel pin operation conditions calculated using a collection of ANL’s analysis codes developed during the IFR program, (2) fuel pin–measured data from post-irradiation examination (PIE), and (3) fuel pin as-built fabrication data.11,12
Metallic Fuel Performance Benchmarks for Versatile Test Reactor Applications
Published in Nuclear Science and Engineering, 2022
Jacob A. Hirschhorn, Jeffrey J. Powers, Ian Greenquist, Ryan T. Sweet, Jianwei Hu, Douglas L. Porter, Douglas C. Crawford
The United States has considerable experience with U-Zr and U-Pu-Zr metallic fuels in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs). Tens of thousands of metallic fuel pins were irradiated in Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II), including those irradiated during the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) program of the 1980s and 1990s (Ref. 4). These developments and design evolutions were responsible for numerous major design and material improvements,5–7 thus establishing the foundation for current metallic fuel pin designs. Irradiation experiments were also conducted at the Fast Flux Test Facility8 (FFTF) and the Transient REActor Test (TREAT) Facility.9,10
Current State of the Design Engineering of the Versatile Test Reactor Plant
Published in Nuclear Science and Engineering, 2022
Steven Unikewicz, Eric Loewen, George Malone
The VTR is an evolutionary plant design, not a revolutionary one. It has evolved from previous SFR designs, particularly the Experimental Breeder Reactor (EBR-II), Integral Fast Reactor (IFR), Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF), and Power Reactor Innovative Small Module (PRISM) plants. That is, where design elements and analyses made sense, the VTR incorporated them. Lessons were and are being learned as the previous designs are reviewed for best practices. This is an ongoing effort.