Abstracts and Available Papers Presented at the
2003 International RERTR Meeting

CERCA'S EXPERIENCE IN UMO FUEL MANUFACTURING

By Ch. JAROUSSE -Y. LAVASTRE - M. GRASSE

From CERCA - ZI Les Bérauds - 26104 ROMANS (FRANCE)

ABSTRACT

Considered as a suitable solution for non-proliferation and reprocessing purposes, UMo fuel has been chosen and studied by the RERTR program since 1996. Involved in the RERTR fuel developments since 1978, with more than 20 years of U₃SI₂ fuel production, and closely linked to the French Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique, CERCA was able to define properly, from the beginning, the right R&D actions plan for UMo fuel development.

CERCA has already demonstrated during the last 4 years its ability to manufacture plates and fuel elements with high density UMo fuel. UMo full size plates produced for 4 irradiation experiments in 3 European reactors afforded us a unique experience.

In addition, as a main part of our R&D effort, we have always studied in depth a key part of the CERCA process outline which is the plate rolling stage. After some preliminary investigation in order to define the phenomenological model describing the behavior of the fuel core when rolling, we have developed a rolling digital simulator.

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