TVEL: Tolerant Fuel (ATF)

History

2022: Creation of ATF nuclear fuel

On February 3, 2022, Rosatom announced the creation of a new nuclear fuel, which is allegedly cheaper and safer than analogues. We are talking about the so-called ATF technology (Incident Tolerant Fuel, tolerant fuel).

It was created at VNIINM named after A.A. Bochvara (JSC VNIINM, part of the Rosatom Fuel Company TVEL). At the time of the development demonstration, experimental uranium disilicide fuel tablets for light water reactors (VVER and PWR) were manufactured. The new generation of nuclear fuel safety has increased heat resistance and low heat capacity, as well as high density and uranium capacity. This means that new portions of fuel will have to be loaded into the reactor less often, which will increase their productivity and reduce the cost of energy and heat generated. At the same time, it is not necessary to increase uranium-235 enrichment.

Low heat capacity with high thermal conductivity means less stored heat in the reactor core and lower temperature of fuel element shells in emergency modes. Finally, the lower operating temperature of the fuel pellet compared to uranium dioxide improves the performance of the fuel.

At Rosatom, reactor tests of the "tolerant" ATF fuel of Russian design for light-water reactors have been conducted since the beginning of 2019. Experimental fuel assemblies (FAs), which have passed three full cycles of reactor tests in the MIR research reactor at JSC GNC NIIAR, contain fuel elements with four versions of combinations of shell materials and a fuel tablet. In September 2021, in the commercial reactor VVER-1000 at power unit No. 2 of the Rostov NPP, the operation of combined FAs-2M began, each of which contains 12 fuel elements in the ATF version. ^[1]

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