Development Status and Plan of Metal Fuel of Integrated Fast Reactor

Metal fuel has high breeding ratio, simple post-processing procedures, good safety, convenient disposal of long-lived actinides, and can be integrated into integrated fast reactor nuclear power plant, making it be an ideal choice for the fuel of fast reactors. Early metal fuel had low burnup (lower than 5at.%) due to shortcomings in material selection and component design. Later, through continuous material selection and component design optimization, the highest burnup of metal fuel has reached 20at.% in international research (mainly in the United States, Japan, and South Korea), and the reliability of high burnup application has basically been determined. In response to the research and development needs of U-TRU-Zr metal fuel with high burnup for China integrated fast reactor, the current status of fast reactor metal fuel research and development at home and abroad was surveyed, and key issues and solutions for high burnup metal fuel were proposed, and a research and development technology roadmap for high burnup U-TRU-Zr metal fuel for China integrated fast reactor was formulated.