Systematic Technology Evaluation Program For Sic Sic Composite Based Accident Tolerant Lwr Fuel Cladding And Core Structures M2ft 14or0202244

Download or read book Systematic Technology Evaluation Program for SiC/SiC Composite-based Accident-Tolerant LWR Fuel Cladding and Core Structures (M2FT-14OR0202244). written by and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fuels and core structures in the current light water reactors (LWR's) are vulnerable to catastrophic consequences in the event of loss of coolant or active cooling, as unfortunately evidenced by the March 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident [1-3]. This vulnerability is attributed primarily to the rapid oxidation kinetics of zirconium alloys in a water vapor environment at very high temperatures [1, 4]. Current LWR's use Zr alloys nearly exclusively as the materials for fuel cladding and core structures. Among the candidate alternative materials for the LWR fuel clads and core structures to enable so-called accident-tolerant fuels (ATF) and accident-tolerant cores (ATC), silicon carbide (SiC) - based materials, in particular continuous SiC fiber-reinforced SiC matrix ceramic composites (SiC/SiC composites or SiC composites), are considered to provide outstanding passive safety features in beyond-design basis severe accident scenarios [3, 5, 6]. The SiC/SiC composites are anticipated to provide additional benefits over the zirconium alloys, including the smaller neutron cross sections, general chemical inertness, ability to withstand higher fuel burn-ups and higher temperatures, exceptional inherent radiation resistance, lack of progressive irradiation growth, and low induced-activation / low decay heat [7]. SiC/SiC composites are finding specialty applications as industrial materials as they mature and their application technologies grow [8]. Moreover, SiC and SiC/SiC composites are among the materials that have most extensively been studied for the effects of irradiation for nuclear applications.