Testing and Simulation for Advanced Technology and Accident Tolerant Fuels (ATF-TS)

The proposed CRP will support interested IAEA Member States in their efforts to design and develop Accident Tolerant and Advanced Technology Fuels (ATF) for light water reactors (LWRs) to enhance the safety and sustainability of nuclear power. The design, fabrication and in-pile behaviour of currently operated and innovative nuclear fuels and materials to enable a reliable and safe operation of nuclear power plants is a recurrent priority of IAEA’s sub-programme "Nuclear Power Reactor Fuel Engineering". Development and validation of computer codes for fuel design and in-pile behaviour analysis under normal and off-normal conditions (including Design Extension Conditions, DEC) are possible only if high-quality experimental data are made available. That is why international cooperation in this area is highly desirable, and in particular among IAEA Member States interested in enhancing their computer code capabilities to predict nuclear fuel behaviour under Design Basis (DB) and Design Extension (DE) Conditions.
The CRP will bring together specialists from IAEA MSs with active ATF R&D programmes to share their national efforts and to contribute in any of the following objectives of the CRP:
Round Robin tests on different ATF cladding concepts (e.g. coated Zr cladding, FeCrAl, SiC);
Bundle tests under DB/DEC with ATF materials (e.g. with coated Zry-4 rods under SA and/or LOCA conditions);
Collection of irradiation tests data;
Code benchmarking against existing data, relevant for advanced fuel and cladding concepts from other experimental Programmes, as well as new tests data obtained during the CRP;
LOCA evaluation methodology development for NPP applications including uncertainty and sensitivities studies.