Detailed characterisations of High Burn-up Structures

J. Noirot (1) , L. Desgranges (1) , J. Lamontagne (1)

1 CEA-DES (ex-DEN) - CEA-Direction des Energies (ex-Direction de l'Energie Nucléaire)

A synthesis of our Post Irradiation Examination results on High Burn-up Structure (HBS) on a wide variety of fuels (various programs with PWR UO2 fuels with different claddings and with or without doping, PWR MOX fuels, FBR fuels) is presented in order to have a better understanding of the HBS formation and evolution up to very high burn-ups, in various conditions of irradiation. A special interest was taken for the existence of the planar defects before the formation of the HBS and for their evolution as well as for the chemical influences and consequences of the HBS formation. Two new mechanisms are proposed to take into account these observations.

Mots clés: High-Burnup Structure (HBS); LECA; PIE; Fuel; MOX; rim; SEM; SIMS; EPMA; nuclear fuel.

Domaines: Physique Nucléaire Expérimentale [nucl-ex]; Physique Nucléaire Théorique [nucl-th]

J. Noirot, L. Desgranges, J. Lamontagne. Detailed characterisations of High Burn-up Structures. Journal of Nuclear Materials, 2006, 372, ⟨10.1016/j.jnucmat.2007.04.037⟩. ⟨cea-02355367⟩