Overview
ABSTRACT
For over sixty years light water reactors (LWRs) used a similar fuel rod geometry and architecture, which consisted in pellets of uranium dioxide (UO2) encased in a cladding of a zirconium (Zr) based alloy. Currently there is an effort by the international materials community to find nuclear fuel materials that can better withstand a loss-of-coolant accident in a LWR core. These newer materials can be classified as evolutionary or revolutionary, both for the cladding and the fuel. Among the evolutionary materials, the use of coatings for the current Zr cladding and the doping of the fuel are being explored. Revolutionary materials include for example the use of monolithic iron-chromium-aluminum (FeCrAl) alloy or silicon carbide-based composites for the cladding.
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Read the articleAUTHOR
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Raul B. REBAK : Corrosion Engineer - General Electric, Schenectady, New York, USA
INTRODUCTION
Humans have been using the heat released during nuclear fission to generate electricity since the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant in Russia was connected to the grid in 1954. The second nuclear power plant connected to the civilian electrical grid was Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania, USA, in 1957. Nuclear fission happens when a neutron collides with an atom of U-235 causing it to split apart while releasing a large amount of energy. Most of this energy can be captured to boil water and make steam to be utilized in the generation of electricity.
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KEYWORDS
zirconium | pellets of uranium dioxide | cladding | FeCrAl
Advanced Materials for Light Water Reactor Fuels. Evolutionary and Recolutionary Nuclear Materials
The six decades exceptional performance of Zr
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