Speaker
Mr
Ernesto González-Robles Corrales
(Karlsruhe Institute of Technology)
Description
Zircaloy claddings of fuel rods for nuclear reactors are considered as first technical barrier for retention of radionuclides produced in the nuclear fuel. The integrity of the cladding is influenced by various processes during reactor operation and beyond, e.g. oxidation, hydrogen uptake, PCI, fission product precipitation, -decay, and radiation damage. Composition of agglomerates found on the inner surface of the plenum section of an irradiated Zircaloy-4 cladding tube are investigated by SEM-EDX, XPS, and synchrotron based techniques.
µ-XRF investigations show uranium hot spots and fission products. Grooves from cladding tube production contain uranium residues from fuel pellets insertion. Plutonium, cesium and rubidium are present ibidem. Another type of agglomerates contains cesium, rubidium, and minor amounts of actinides. Cesium and rubidium may originate from three sources: uranium traces within the cladding, uranium residues in surface grooves, and Cs/Rb released from subjacent fuel pellets.
Primary author
Mr
Ernesto González-Robles Corrales
(Karlsruhe Institute of Technology)
Co-authors
Dieter Schild
(Karlsruhe Institute of Technology)
Jörg Rothe
(Karlsruhe Institute of Technology)
Dr
Michel Herm
(Karlsruhe Institute of Technology)
Nikolaus Müller
(Karlsruhe Institute of Technology)
Ron Dagan
(Karlsruhe Institute of Technology)
Volker Metz
(Karlsruhe Institute of Technology)
kathy Dardenne
(Karlsruhe Institute of Technology)
