Post Irradiation Testing of High Temperature Reactor Spherical Fuel Elements Under Accident Conditions

Abstract

A new furnace for accident condition testing of spherical High Temperature Reactor (HTR) fuel elements has been installed and is now operating in the Hot Cells of the Institute for Transuranium Elements (ITU) Karlsruhe. The recent apparatus was constructed on the basis of a former development by Forschungszentrum Ju¨lich (FzJ) [Schenk 1988] where it was named Ku¨FA, the German acronym for cold finger apparatus. In a preceding publication [Toscano 2004] the general concept and details of the device were described. The present paper reports on the first operation under hot conditions, the calibration of the fission gas measurement and of the efficiency of the cold finger, which is used to plate out solid fission products. Finally the results of fission product release and analysis of two heating tests on two fuel elements from the HFR K6 irradiation experiment [Nabielek 1993] are presented and discussed.