Fission products behaviour during a power transient: Their inventory in an intragranular bubble

Lionel Desgranges (1) , Thierry Blay (1) , J. Lamontagne (1) , Ingrid Roure (1) , Philippe Bienvenu (1)

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

The behavior of fission products is a key issue during incidental or accidental sequence for nuclear fuel. Here we characterized how fission products behaved inside a UO$_2$ pellet during a power ramp. In the pellet center fission products have left the UO$_2$ ceramic and can be found in bubbles. The composition of the bubble was determined using an original experimental methodology. The existence of separated precipitates made of metallic, for the one, and volatile, for the other, fission products was evidenced. This result is discussed with regards to the behavior of fission products during a power ramp.

Domains: Nuclear Theory [nucl-th]; Nuclear Experiment [nucl-ex]

Lionel Desgranges, Thierry Blay, J. Lamontagne, Ingrid Roure, Philippe Bienvenu. Fission products behaviour during a power transient: Their inventory in an intragranular bubble. Journal of Nuclear Materials, 2017, 493, pp.225-229. ⟨10.1016/j.jnucmat.2017.05.021⟩. ⟨cea-02389213⟩