Abstract
The U.S. Department of Energy’s High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR), located at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), was originally designed (in the 1960s) primarily as a part of the overall program to produce transuranic isotopes for use in the heavy-element research program of the United States. Today, the reactor is a highly versatile machine, producing medical and transuranic isotopes and performing materials test experimental irradiations and neutron-scattering experiments.
The ability to test advanced fuels and cladding materials in a thermal neutron spectrum in the United States is limited, and a fast-spectrum irradiation facility does not currently exist in this country. The HFIR has a distinct advantage for consideration as a fuel/cladding irradiation facility because of the extremely high neutron fluxes that this reactor provides over the full thermal- to fast-neutron energy range. New test capabilities have been developed that will allow testing of advanced nuclear fuels and cladding materials in the HFIR under prototypic light-water reactor (LWR) and fast-reactor (FR) operating conditions.