Development of high-performance fuel at the level of mass-productivity and practical application for high-temperature gas-cooled reactors
—Leading the world with the key to small modular high-temperature gas-cooled reactor technology—
To achieve application of TRISO (Tri-structural isotropic)-coated fuel particle with spherical uranium dioxide for commercial high temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs), there is a need to extract more energy by burning uranium than from fuel for the existing High-Temperature Engineering Test Reactor (HTTR) as a research reactor.
The Japan Atomic Energy Agency has developed a design technology for TRISO-coated fuel particle capable of extracting energy three times higher than the HTTR fuel. In addition, based on newly designed geometry of TRISO-coated fuel particle, Nuclear Fuel Industries, Ltd. has manufactured it in mass-production scale. As the result, high-quality mass production technology has been established while confirming a high integrity of new TRISO by a neutron irradiation test.
Development of small modular HTGRs is progressing all over the world, and the practical HTGR fuel technology consisting of burnup extension and mass production is one of key to achieve practical use of HTGR. This result can be expected not only to lead the world, and also to contribute to the global development of practical HTGR fuel technologies.
