The mission of the Advanced Fuels
Campaign (AFC) is to perform Research, Development, and Demonstration
(RD&D) activities for advanced fuel forms (including cladding) to:
•Enhance
the performance and safety of the nation’s current and future reactors
•Enhance
proliferation resistance of nuclear fuel
•Effectively
utilize nuclear energy resources
•Address
the longer-term waste management challenges.
This includes development of state-of-the
art Research and Development (R&D) infrastructure to support the use of a
“goal-oriented science-based approach.” This approach is aimed at a fundamental
understanding of fuel and cladding fabrication methods and performance under
irradiation, enabling the pursuit of multiple fuel forms for future fuel cycle
options.
Work includes fundamental experiments, theory, and advanced modeling
and simulation. The modeling and simulation activities for fuel performance are
carried out under the Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS)
program, which is closely coordinated with AFC.
The term “fuel” includes fuels, targets, and their associated cladding
materials.
The Advanced Sensors and Instrumentation (ASI) program focuses on the
development of in-pile instrumentation and capabilities to enable integration with
irradiated nuclear fuels and materials. Development and qualification of these
capabilities are closely coordinated with AFC to leverage
state-of-the-art instrumentation and to develop and implement next
generation devices into representative reactor core environments via in-pile
experiments.
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