Westinghouse-developed nuclear fuels reach commercial testing

Westinghouse has developed two new nuclear fuels — a chromia-alumia “doped” fuel pellet design and a uranium silicide fuel pellet design — that are now being tested in a commercial reactor.

The industry has been eager to create new fuels for the market by 2026, and these were created through the U.S. Department of Energy’s accident tolerant fuel program. The uranium silicide is a mix of uranium and silicon which potentially offers a higher density of uranium atoms per pellet, leading to longer operation times, greater power output and higher burnups. They are enclosed in a zirconium alloy cladding. Their companion, chromia-alumia pellets, are housed in chromium-coated zirconium cladding that makes them more resistant to oxidation and provides for better heat transfer. Westinghouse expects this design to offer better material properties and fuel performance overall.

As for testing, Westinghouse has installed two lead assemblies in the Byron-2 reactor in Illinois for use during its spring refueling outage. These contain the new creations for observation and will remain for up to six years. They will be examined between each refueling cycle every 18 to 24 months. Some of the fuels will eventually be used in transient tests to determine safe operating limits, after which the data collected will be used to license the fuels with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

At this point, Westinghouse reported that the company and its contemporaries are two years ahead of schedule for commercial testing.