Nuclear Engineering Commons^™

Design And Evaluation Of Processes For Fuel Fabrication: Quarterly Progress Report #10, Georg F. Mauer

Fuels Campaign (TRP)

The tenth quarter of the project covered the following:

• Mr. Richard Silva continued the development of a simulation model with a Waelischmiller hot cell robot, and is close to completing his M.Sc. thesis project. Rich will likely defend his thesis in April 2004.

• A project review meeting with Dr. Mitch Meyer and other ANL scientists was held in December 2003 at ANL West, Idaho Falls, ID. Dr. Meyer described ANL long term research objectives with regard to transmuter fuel manufacturing.

• Further refinements on Concepts and Methods for Vision-Based Hot Cell Supervision and control, focusing on rule-based object …

Design And Evaluation Of Processes For Fuel Fabrication, Georg F. Mauer

Fuels Campaign (TRP)

The goal of this research project is to provide technical support to process designers working on the development of the fuel cycles for transmutation applications. Detailed process models are developed to better define the impact of fuel choice on the transmuter fuel cycle, including relative process losses, waste generation, and plant capital cost. These process models provide insight regarding required plant size and number of plants needed to mesh with the fuel recycling line. They also determine requirements for automation.

Manufacturing models for large-scale production in a hot cell environment are also developed. Combined, these two models allow the assessment …