Nuclear Fuel Research

Modified Open Fuel Cycle

The key differences between a Open-Through Fuel Cycle and Modified Open Fuel Cycle are sublte but important.
The Once Through Fuel Cycle has the following characteristics:

No recycling or conditioning of used fuel
Low uranium utilization
Appropriate for a low price uranium future
Appropriate when repository capacity and/or actinide loadings are not show stoppers.

In the case of Anshar, this last bullet is important as availability of respository space is limited and the likelihood of building additional facilities will take time.

Briding The Gap

Modified Open Fuel Cycles can provide benefits of both Open and Full Recycle fuel cycles. Modified open cycles involve reusing fuel. This will require some form of treatment to the fuel, cladding, etc. For proliferation purposes however, the focus of the term "treatment" means to modify the used fuel in some way.

Example Concepts

Key elements of the Modified Open Fuel Cycle include

Breed and burn recycle reactor concepts (including the traveling wave designs)
Deep burn of recycled transuranics in high-temperature gas reactors (requires fuel processing)
Deep burn of recycled transuranics in inert matrix fuels

Research Projects

Modified open cycles can be made possible by designing a system that utilizes new a novel concepts currently being analyzed by SNRI. Additionally, SNRI will need to further develop fuel forms that accomodate much higher exposure and develop conditioning processes that avoid complex chemical operations. SNRI is looking to complete all R&D work in the next 8 years.

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Inspection & X-Rays

The current use of manual inspection by fuel vendors for quality control of the fabricated fuel pellets is not only-time consuming but also exposes the inspection staff to limited radiation. SNRI is developing an automated, real-time fuel rod inspection technique for better speed and accuracy using an X-Ray tomographic inspection technique to detect anomolies.