Fuel Deposits, Chemistry and CANDU® Reactor Operat

Abstract

“Hot conditioning” is a process which has occurred as part of commissioning and initial start-up of each CANDU® reactor, the first being NPD-2. Understanding of the cause of the failure of the Pickering Unit 1 G16 fuel channel led to a revised approach to “hot conditioning”, initially demonstrated on Bruce Unit 5, and subsequently utilized for each CANDU® unit since. The difference being that during hot conditioning fuel was not in core until Bruce Unit 5; fuel has been in core for each subsequent CANDU® unit start-up. The hot conditioning processes will be described along with the short and long term consequences to fuel.