This publication sets out the findings of an international seminar, held in Aix-en-Provence, France in March 2004, which considered recent progress in the field of pellet-clad interaction in light water reactor fuels. It also reviews current understanding of relevant phenomena and their impact on the nuclear fuel rod under the widest possible conditions, and about both uranium-oxide and mixed-oxide fuels.

Flexible operation and related power changes can have a direct impact on fuel integrity through pellet-cladding interaction/stress corrosion cracking (PCI/SCC) phenomena, which could lead to fuel failures in certain conditions.

During the normal operation of light water reactor, fuel defects can reside on fuel cladding from various reason such as fuel-pellet mechanical interaction, the hydriding of the Zr clad, the grid fritting from the assembly support, the warp wire fritting with the clad and also the stress corrosion cracking (SCC). The formation of defects on fuel cladding will result water ingression to the gap and react with nuclear fuel and the cladding inner surface. The interaction of water and nuclear fuel will affect the fuel thermal properties and deteriorate the cladding by hydriding and change of oxygen potential in the fuel. The change of fuel thermal properties will decrease the thermal conductivity, lead the decrease of heat transfer coefficient which may increase the fuel melting risk. The volatile fission products and fission gas will release to the coolant through cladding defects and increase the coolant activity and the defective nuclear fuel becomes a fission product source term when reactor is under normal operation. Experimental and modeling are applied to understand the behavior of a defective fuel pin. The experimental part focuses on the dissolution test of rare earth fission products in simulated LWR coolant chemistry and the diffusion coefficient measurement of cesium iodide in simulated LWR coolant chemistry using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) technique. Rare earth fission products significantly contribute the residual heat and large quantity of radioactivity after the core shut down or in severe accident, therefore, their dissolution kinetic parameters in LWR are important to reactor safety and the understanding the source terms.

Accident Tolerant Materials for Light Water Reactor Fuels provides a description of what an accident tolerant fuel is and the benefits and detriments of each concept. The book begins with an introduction to nuclear power as a renewable energy source and the current materials being utilized in light water reactors. It then moves on to discuss the recent advancements being made in accident tolerant fuels, reviewing the specific materials, their fabrication and implementation, environmental resistance, irradiation behavior, and licensing requirements. The book concludes with a look to the future of new power generation technologies. It is written for scientists and engineers working in the nuclear power industry and is the first comprehensive work on this topic. Introduces the fundamental description of accident tolerant fuel, including fabrication and implementation Describes both the benefits and detriments of the various Accident Tolerant Fuel concepts Includes information on the process of materials selection with a discussion of how and why specific materials were chosen, as well as why others failed