The AGR-1 experiment is a fueled multiple-capsule irradiation experiment that was irradiated in the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) from December 26, 2006 until November 6, 2009 in support of the Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) Technology Development Office (TDO) Fuel Development and Qualification program. An important measure of the fuel performance is the quantification of the fission product releases over the duration of the experiment. To provide this data for the inert fission gasses(Kr and Xe), a fission product monitoring system (FPMS) was developed and implemented to monitor the individual capsule effluents for the radioactive species. The FPMS continuously measured the concentrations of various krypton and xenon isotopes in the sweep gas from each AGR-1 capsule to provide an indicator of fuel irradiation performance. Spectrometer systems quantified the concentrations of Kr-85m, Kr-87, Kr-88, Kr-89, Kr-90, Xe-131m, Xe-133, Xe 135, Xe 135m, Xe-137, Xe-138, and Xe-139 accumulated over repeated eight hour counting intervals.-. To determine initial fuel quality and fuel performance, release activity for each isotope of interest was derived from FPMS measurements and paired with a calculation of the corresponding isotopic production or birthrate. The release activities and birthrates were combined to determine Release-to-Birth ratios for the selected nuclides. R/B values provide indicators of initial fuel quality and fuel performance during irradiation. This paper presents a brief summary of the FPMS, the release to birth ratio data for the AGR-1 experiment and preliminary comparisons of AGR-1 experimental fuels data to fission gas release models.

A sweep gas facility has been used to measure the release rates of radioactive fission gases from small UN specimens irradiated to 8-percent burnup at high fission-rate densities. The measured release rates have been correlated with an equation whose terms correspond to direct recoil release, fission-enhanced diffusion, and atomic diffusion (a function of temperature). Release rates were found to increase linearly with burnups between 1.5 and 8 percent. Pore migration was observed after operation at 1550 K to over 6 percent burnup.