Publications Details
Titanium and/or Aluminum Sleeve Experiments in Fully-Reflected Water-Moderated U(4.31)O2 Fuel Rod Lattices with 2.8 cm Pitch
The US Department of Energy Nuclear Energy Research Initiative (NERI) funded the Bumup Credit Critical Experiment (BUCCX) at Sandia National Laboratories. The BUCCX was designed to investigate the effect of fission product materials on critical systems. The BUCCX assembly is a water-moderated and -reflected array of Zircaloy-clad triangular-pitched U(4.31)02 fuel elements. The original BUCCX experiments with rhodium are evaluated in LEU-COMP-THERM-079. In the experiments here, sets of up to 60 experiment titanium and aluminum sleeves with nominal outside diameter of 1 in (2.54 cm), wall thickness of 0.035 in (0.0889 cm), and length of 19.60 (49.784 cm) were fabricated. The sleeves are approximately the same length as the fueled section of the fuel elements and have an inner diameter that is 0.421 in (1.0693 cm) larger than the fuel elements. This allows for each sleeve to be centered around a fuel element between the grid plates within the array. Configurations differ by the number and location of sleeves. The seventeen BUCCX critical experiments reported here compare the effects of the titanium and aluminum sleeves on nearly critical fuel assembly arrays.