Speaker
Description
The European project PUMMA (Plutonium Management for More Agility) is dedicated to the different Pu management options in 4th generation systems to assess the impact on the entire fuel cycle. Fast neutron reactors with associated fuel cycle strategies have been chosen to cope with these options because they are flexible: they offer the possibility of isogeneration, burning or breeding of plutonium.
The fuel cycle scenarios associated with the different strategies will be evaluated. The behaviour of MOX fuel with Pu contents of 45% will be studied experimentally through the characterizations of fuels from three irradiations carried out under nominal conditions (in MTR and SFR) and incidental (in MTR). PUMMA will provide additional results on the ther-mo-mechanical properties of this fuel covering the full range of composition and effect of irradiation. These studies will be supplemented by dissolution tests on spent fuels with high Pu contents because to date, the studies have been lim-ited to concentrations below 30%.
The construction of this project was carried out with complementarity between the disciplines of the fuel cycle and with a close exchange between simulation and experimental verification for each of the fields: fuel behaviour under irradia-tion, material properties, spent fuel dissolution and partitioning. PUMMA will be the link between Europe and other international organizations: fuel cycle studies at IAEA and OECD, GEN-IV systems at ESNII and GIF, studies on fuel materials at OECD.
Another objective is to maintain the expertise and skills on the management of plutonium in Europe involving the young generation of researchers with experts who have contributed to these projects for over 20 years.
22 participants will contribute to this project with a total budget of around 7M €.
PUMMA starts in October 2020.
Affiliation/Organization | CEA |
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Country/Int. organization | France |
Speaker's title | Ms |
Speaker's email address | nathalie.chauvin@cea.fr |