Canadian CANDU Fuel Development Program and Recent Operating Experience

Abstract

This paper reviews the performance of the CANDU fuel in the Canadian CANDU reactors in 1997 and 1998. The operating experience demonstrates that the CANDU fuel has performed very well. Over the 2-year period, the fuel-bundle defect rate for all bundles irradiated in the Canadian CANDU reactors has remained very low, at between 0.006% to 0.016%. On a fuel element basis, this represents an element defect rate of less than about 0.0005%. One of the reasons for the good fuel performance is the support provided by the Canadian fuel research and development programs. These programs address operational issues and provide evolutionary improvements to the fuel products. The programs consist of the Fuel Technology Program, funded by the CANDU Owners Group, and the Advanced Fuel and Fuel Cycles Technology Program. funded by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. These 2 programs, which have been in place for many years, complement each other by sharing expert resources and experimental facilities. This paper describes the programs in 1999/2000. to provide an overview of the scope of the programs and the issues that these programs address.