In 2010, the Department of Energy (DOE) requested that a Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL)-led team research the possibility of using a getter material to reduce the pressure in the plenum region of a light water reactor fuel rod. During the first two years of the project, several candidate materials were identified and tested using a variety of experimental techniques, most with xenon as a simulant for fission products. Earlier promising results for candidate getter materials were found to be incorrect, caused by poor experimental techniques. In May 2012, it had become clear that none of the initial materials had demonstrated the ability to adsorb xenon in the quantities and under the conditions needed. Moreover, the proposed corrective action plan could not meet the schedule needed by the project manager. BNL initiated an internal project review which examined three questions: 1. Which materials, based on accepted materials models, might be capable of absorbing xenon? 2. Which experimental techniques are capable of not only detecting if xenon has been absorbed but also determine by what mechanism and the resulting molecular structure? 3. Are the results from the previous techniques useable now and in the future? As part of the second question, the project review team evaluated the previous experimental technique to determine why incorrect results were reported in early 2012. This engineering report is a summary of the current status of the project review, description of newly recommended experiments and results from feasibility studies at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS).
Revised: December 17, 2013 |
Published: November 1, 2012