FUICA

Other than the fuel devices designed with a full water loop, a more simplified set-up is needed in which a fuel rod can be irradiated inside a closed capsule: i.e. FUICA, capsule-type device containing fuel. Fuel rod cooling is performed passively inside the capsule via direct boiling and condensation in the gap between rod and capsule wall. The capsule is cooled externally using the reactor’s main feedwater. In addition, the test device will be equipped with small mini-tubes for pressure and water chemistry control and simple instrumentation (thermocouples, pressure sensors, flow meter and calorimetry set-up). The project includes the conceptual, preliminary and detailed design of the fuel capsule to be inserted into the JHR reflector, as well as preliminary and final nuclear safety analysis.

The FICA experimental device is designed to study the behaviour of fuels under neutron flux in static mode under pressurised water (no circulation of the coolant with the out-of-core section).

This device comes in addition to the loops in PWR (MADISON, ADELINE and LORELEI) conditions which are more complex experimental devices reproducing the temperature and pressure conditions of power plants needed to qualify industrial products (TRL>7).

It will meet the need for more straightforward irradiation experiments performed to characterise and better understand fuel behaviour, which do not require using a loop-type device. The aim of this type of device is to irradiate fissile material under homogeneous, controlled and well-known thermal and neutron conditions in order to measure some of their basic physical properties in a hot laboratory.