The goal of this award is to develop a potentially revolutionary Light Water Reactor (LWR) Silicon Carbide (SiC) cladding material that can withstand significant accident and transient conditions. This program seeks to support research and development of SiC cladding technology, including mechanical, thermal-hydraulic, high temperature, and corrosion testing for both unirradiated and irradiated SiC cladding samples. This will provide the useful performance data to enable future commercial lead test rods (LTRs) irradiation testing. Irradiation campaigns in research reactors (e.g., INL ATR, ORNL HFIR, MITR) and Post Irradiation Evaluations (PIEs) are expected to provide irradiation performance data for fuel vendor licensing and accident analyses methods needed for NRC licensing review. Improvements in SiC/SiC composite cladding fabrication methods are expected to be made.

Managing Unit: VPDoR