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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Deep Space: The new frontier of radiation controls
In commercial nuclear power, there has always been a deliberate tension between the regulator and the utility owner. The regulator fundamentally exists to protect the worker, and the utility, to make a profit. It is a win-win balance.
From the U.S. nuclear industry has emerged a brilliantly successful occupational nuclear safety record—largely the result of an ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) process that has driven exposure rates down to what only a decade ago would have been considered unthinkable. In the U.S. nuclear industry, the system has accomplished an excellent, nearly seamless process that succeeds to the benefit of both employee and utility owner.
Aart Van Der Linde, Jacques H. N. Verheugen
Nuclear Technology | Volume 59 | Number 1 | October 1982 | Pages 70-77
Technical Paper | Nuclear Fuel | doi.org/10.13182/NT82-A33053
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Two irradiation tests were conducted in the pressurized water reactor loop of the High Flux Reactor at Petten to compare the low burnup (0.4% fima), high power (35 to 60 kW·m−1) performance of MO2 sphere-pac fuel with the plutonium incorporated only in the large (1000-µm) diameter spheres and that of homogeneously enriched UO2 sphere-pac and pellet fuel The fuel columns in the Zircaloy-4 clad pins were fabricated with a smear density of 87 to 88% of the theoretical UO2 density. Postirradiation examinations showed that fission gas release, axial migration of cesium, and relocation of small (10- to 40-µm) and medium (∼100-µm) diameter spheres were considerably larger in the MO2 sphere-pac pins than in the UO2 sphere-pac pins. Contrary to observations in the pellet pins, no hard mechanical fuel-cladding interaction has been observed in the sphere-pac pins. Although these tests showed the technical feasibility of the inhomogeneous MO2 sphere-pac fuel pin, its further development seems appropriate only in connection with the use of recycle light water reactor fuel.
