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This page describes how uranium dioxide nuclear fuel behaves during both normal nuclear reactor operation and under reactor accident conditions, such as overheating. Work in this area is often very expensive to conduct, and so has often been performed on a collaborative basis between groups of countries, usually under the aegis of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's ...
Nuclear fuel process A graph comparing nucleon number against binding energy Close-up of a replica of the core of the research reactor at the Institut Laue-Langevin. Nuclear fuel refers to any substance, typically fissile material, which is used by nuclear power stations or other nuclear devices to generate energy.
As the fuel expands on heating, the core of the pellet expands more than the rim which may lead to cracking. Because of the thermal stress thus formed the fuel cracks, the cracks tend to go from the centre to the edge in a star shaped pattern. In order to better understand and control these changes in materials, these behaviors are studied.
The nuclear fuel cycle, also called nuclear fuel chain, is the progression of nuclear fuel through a series of differing stages. It consists of steps in the front end , which are the preparation of the fuel, steps in the service period in which the fuel is used during reactor operation, and steps in the back end , which are necessary to safely ...
A core shroud is a stainless steel cylinder surrounding a nuclear reactor core whose main function is to direct the cooling water flow. [1] The nuclear reactor core is where the nuclear reactions take place. Because the reactions are exothermic, cool water is needed to prevent the reactor core from melting down. The core shroud helps by ...
The term nuclear meltdown is not officially defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency [3] or by the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. [4] It has been defined to mean the accidental melting of the core of a nuclear reactor, [5] however, and is in common usage a reference to the core's either complete or partial collapse.
Criticality accidents are divided into one of two categories: Process accidents, where controls in place to prevent any criticality are breached;; Reactor accidents, which occur due to operator errors or other unintended events (e.g., during maintenance or fuel loading) in locations intended to achieve or approach criticality, such as nuclear power plants, nuclear reactors, and nuclear ...
The water, seeping into pores and microcracks, has frozen there. This is the same process that creates potholes on roads, accelerates cracking. [31] Corium (and also highly irradiated uranium fuel) has the property of spontaneous dust generation, or spontaneous self-sputtering of the surface.