b'3.2 JAEA/INL ARES PROJECT AT TREATJAEA/INL ARES Project at TREATPrincipal Investigator: Colby Jensen and Takayuki Ozawa (JAEA)Team Members/ Collaborators: Robert Armstrong, Cole Blakely, Luca Capriotti, Daniel Chapman, Andrew Chipman, Fidelma Di Lemma, Devin Imholte, Pavel Medvedev, Kyle Paaren, Doug Porter, Trevor Smuin, Daniel Wachs and Nicolas WoolstenhulmeThe ARES joint projectA dvanced Reactor Experimentsmization of fuel designs and associ-for Sodium Fast Reactor Fuelsated operational limits to improve with INL and JAEA is(ARES) is a joint projectperformance and economics demands underway to investigatebetween the U.S. Idaho Nationalthe continued experimental evalua-transient performance ofLaboratory (INL) and the Japanesetion of these behaviors. These goals high burnup metallic andAtomic Energy Agency (JAEA) torequire the development of improved MOX fuels in TREAT for ainvestigate the transient fuel perfor- fuel performance behavioral models world first in more thanmance of irradiated advanced metallicimplemented in advanced modeling two decades.and mixed oxide (MOX) fuel designsand simulation tools, which in turn from Experimental Breeder Reactorrequire modern experiment comple-(EBR)-II experiment programs.ments with new data streams. Figure 1 Transient fuel performance of fastshows examples of metallic and MOX reactor fuels has been well-establishedfuel pins after undergoing transients. internationally. The continued opti- The ARES project relies on the Tran-sient Reactor Test (TREAT) facility and the development of associated in-pile testing infrastructure to provide SFR boundary conditions to accomplish its goals.Project DescriptionThe ARES project will investigate the transient performance of high value irradiated metallic and MOX fuels as a collaboration between INL and JAEA to support improved performance of advanced reactors. The objectives are to investigate fuel failure modes in high burnup metallic and MOX fuels while developing and validating transient fuel performance models and establishing testing infrastruc-ture at the TREAT facility. Figure 2 provides an overview of project timelines and tasks covering fiscal year (FY)20-FY23. The ARES project Figure 1. Graphical representation of the ARES project for metallic and MOX fuelis comprised of five primary compo-experiments in TREAT with U.S. DOE and JAEA. nents in this first phase. 130 2020|AFC ACCOMPLISHMENTS'