• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.931-932
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• 2004

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.909-910
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• 2004

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.421-422
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• 2005

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.8
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• pp.2771-2782
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• 2022

When assessing the radiological consequences of postulated accident scenarios, it is of primary interest to determine the amount of radioactive fission gas accumulated in the fuel rod free volume. The state-of-the-art semi-empirical approach (ANS 5.4-2010) is reviewed and compared with a mechanistic approach to evaluate the release of radioactive fission gases. At the intra-granular level, the diffusion-decay equation is handled by a spectral diffusion algorithm. At the inter-granular level, a mechanistic description of the grain boundary is considered: bubble growth and coalescence are treated as interrelated phenomena, resulting in the grain-boundary venting as the onset for the release from the fuel pellets. The outcome is a kinetic description of the release of radioactive fission gases, of interest when assessing normal and off-normal conditions. We implement the model in SCIANTIX and reproduce the release of short-lived fission gases, during the CONTACT 1 experiments. The results show a satisfactory agreement with the measurement and with the state-of-the-art methodology, demonstrating the model soundness. A second work will follow, providing integral fuel rod analysis by coupling the code SCIANTIX with the thermo-mechanical code TRANSURANUS.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.255-266
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• 2021

Solid-state mechanochemical reduction combined with subsequent melting consolidation was suggested as a technical option for the oxide reduction in pyroprocessing. Ni ingot was produced from NiO as a starting material through this technique while Li metal was used as a reducing agent. To determine the technical feasibility of this approach for pyroprocessing, which handles spent nuclear fuels, thermodynamic calculations of the phase stabilities of various metal oxides of U and other fission elements were made when several alkaline and alkali-earth metals were used as reducing agents. This technique is expected to be beneficial, not only for oxide reduction but also for other unit processes involved in pyroprocessing.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.193-207
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• 2022

Thermodynamically, TRUO_x, REO_x, and SrO_x can be chlorinated using ammonium chloride (NH₄Cl) as a chlorinating agent, whereas uranium oxides (U₃O₈ and UO₂) remain in the oxide form. In the preliminary experiments of this study, U₃O₈ and CeO₂ are reacted separately with NH₄Cl at 623 K in a sealed reactor. CeO₂ is highly reactive with NH₄Cl and becomes chlorinated into CeCl₃. The chlorination yield ranges from 96% to 100%. By contrast, U₃O₈ remains as UO₂ even after chlorination. We produced U/REO_x- and U/SrO_x-simulated fuels to understand the chlorination characteristics of the oxide compounds. Each simulated fuel is chlorinated with NH₄Cl, and the products are dissolved in LiCl-KCl salt to separate the oxide compounds from the chloride salt. The oxide compounds precipitate at the bottom. The precipitate and salt phases are sampled and analyzed via X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope-energy dispersive spectroscopy, and inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy. The analysis results indicate that REO_x and SrO_x can be easily chlorinated from the simulated fuels; however, only a few of U oxide phases is chlorinated, particularly from the U/SrO_x-simulated fuels.

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.87-94
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• 2008

In order to investigate a nitriding process of spent oxide fuel and the subsequent change in thermal properties after nitriding, simulated spent fuel powder was converted into a nitride pellet with simulated fission product elements through a carbothermic reduction process. Nitriding rate of simulated spent fuel was decreased with increasing of the amount of fission products. Contents of Ba and Sr in simulated spent fuel were decreased after the carbothermic reduction process. The thermal conductivity of the nitride pellet was decreased by an addition of fission product element but was higher than that of the oxide fuel containing fission product elements.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.572-594
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• 2016

As one of the Gen-IV nuclear energy systems, a sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) is being developed at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute. As a long-term national research project, advanced radiation resistant oxide dispersion strengthened steel (ARROS) is being developed as an in-core fuel cladding tube material for a SFR in the future. In this paper, the current status of ARROS development is reviewed and its future prospective is discussed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.903-904
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• 2004

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.317-328
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• 2011

Pyroprocessing technology was developed in the beginning for metal fuel treatment in the US in the 1960s. The conventional aqueous process, such as PUREX, is not appropriate for treating metal fuel. Pyroprocessing technology has advantages over the aqueous process: less proliferation risk, treatment of spent fuel with relatively high heat and radioactivity, compact equipment, etc. The addition of an oxide reduction process to the pyroprocessing metal fuel treatment enables handling of oxide spent fuel, which draws a potential option for the management of spent fuel from the PWR. In this context, KAERI has been developing pyroprocessing technology to handle the oxide spent fuel since the 1990s. This paper describes the current status of pyroprocessing technology development at KAERI from the head-end process to the waste treatment. A unit process with various scales has been tested to produce the design data associated with the scale up. A performance test of unit processes integration will be conducted at the PRIDE facility, which will be constructed by early 2012. The PRIDE facility incorporates the unit processes all together in a cell with an Ar environment. The purpose of PRIDE is to test the processes for unit process performance, operability by remote equipment, the integrity of the unit processes, process monitoring, Ar environment system operation, and safeguards related activities. The test of PRIDE will be promising for further pyroprocessing technology development.