Swelling of U(Mo) dispersion fuel under irradiation - Non-destructive analyses of the SELENIUM plates

This paper reports the results and interpretation of the non-destructive post-irradiation examinations that were performed on these fuel plates and derives a law for the fuel swelling evolution with burnup for this fuel type. It further reports additional PIE results obtained on fuel plates irradiated in campaigns in the past in order to allow a complete comparison with all results obtained under similar conditions. The fuel swelling is shown to evolve linearly with the fission density, with an increase in swelling rate around 2.5 × 1021 f/cm3, which is associated with the restructuring of the fuel. A further increase in swelling rate is observed at the highest burnups, which is discussed in this article.