Feasibility study of fuel cladding performance for ultra-long cycle fast reactor (ucfr) application

Abstract

As a part of R&D activities for the development of long-life core sodium-cooled fast reactors, cladding performance of the Ultra-long Cycle Fast Reactor (UCFR) is evaluated at two design power levels (1000 MWe and 100 MWe) and cladding peak temperatures(600C and 650C). The key design concept of the UCFR is a non-refueling during 30 to 60 years operation. This concept may require the maximum peak cladding temperature of ~ 650 C and cladding radiation damage of over 400 dpa (displacements per atom). Therefore, for the design of UCFR, challenges such as thermal creep, irradiation creep and swelling must be quantitativelyevaluated. As candidate cladding materials, ferritic-martensitic (FM) steels, oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) steels and silicon carbide based composite materials are studied with deformation behavior modeling for the feasibility evaluation in this study. The result show the potential promise of SiC application for UCFR cladding material, with the exception of irradiation creep due to high neutron fluence stemming from long operating time of about 30 to 60 years.