Preparation of Alloy for First Core Loading of EBR-II

Book excerpt: The alloy used for the fabrication of the fuel pins for the first core loading of the second Experimental Breeder Reactor (EBR-II) was prepared in the prototype equipment developed for the melt-refining processing of the irradiated EBR-II fuel. One hundred and twenty-five 10-kg ingots were made, of which 40 were un-enriched uranium-fissium alloy and 85 were enriched uranium-fissium alloy. In addition, nineteen 10-kg batches of un-enriched uranium-fissium scrap and forty- seven 10-kg batches of enriched uranium-fissium alloy scrap were melted for consolidation into ingots. The average yield for the alloy preparation runs was 96.5% and for the scrap remelt runs was 93%. The chemical and isotopic compositions of the ingots produced were all within specifications (95 plus or minus 1.0 wt% uranium, of which 48.1 plus or minus 1.2 wt% is U-235).