Innovative and safe supply of fuels for reactors

Stéphane Valance (1) , Bruno Baumeister (2) , Winfried Petry (2) , Jan Höglund

1 DEC - Département d'Etudes des Combustibles
2 FRM II - Forschungsneutronenquelle Heinz Maier-Leibnitz

Within the Euratom research and training program 2014-2018, three projects aiming at securing the fuel supply for European power and research reactors have been funded. Those three projects address the potential weaknesses-supplier diversity, provision of enriched fissile material-associated with the furbishing of nuclear fuels. First, the ESSANUF project, now terminated, resulted in the design and licensing of a fuel element for VVER-440 nuclear power plant manufactured by Westinghouse. The HERACLES-CP project aimed at preparing the conversion of high performance research reactor to low enriched uranium fuels by exploring fuels based on uranium-molybdenium. Finally, the LEU-FOREvER pursues the work initiated in HERACLES-CP, completing it by an exploration of the high-density silicide fuels, and including the diversification of fuel supplier for soviet designed European medium power research reactor. This paper describes the projects goals, structure and their achievements.

Domains: Physics [physics]; Nuclear Theory [nucl-th]

Stéphane Valance, Bruno Baumeister, Winfried Petry, Jan Höglund. Innovative and safe supply of fuels for reactors. EPJ N - Nuclear Sciences & Technologies, 2020, 6, pp.40. ⟨10.1051/epjn/2019013⟩. ⟨cea-02641319⟩