CLADDING TO SUSTAIN CORROSION, CREEP AND GROWTH AT HIGH BURN-UPS

The increasing power and other demands on PWR fuel is leading to a demand for cladding that has low corrosion but that should also be robust with regard to mechanical behavior, impact of the irradiation environment and the coolant chemistry. The Optimized $ZIRLO^{TM}$ cladding is an evolutionary development of $ZIRLO^{TM}$ taking advantage of the long experience of the ZIRLO cladding but has significantly improved corrosion behavior. Recently, operation of Optimized ZIRLO to above 73 kWd/kgU has shown a reduction of the corrosion of almost 50%.