Interim results from UO/sub 2/ fuel oxidation tests in air

An experimental program is being conducted at Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) to extend the characterization of spent fuel oxidation in air. To characterize oxidation behavior of irradiated UO/sub 2/, fuel oxidation tests were performed on declad light-water reactor spent fuel and nonirradited UO/sub 2/ pellets in the temperature range of 135 to 250/sup 0/C. These tests were designed to determine the important independent variables that might affect spent fuel oxidation behavior. The data from this program, when combined with the test results from other programs, will be used to develop recommended spent fuel dry-storage temperature limits in air. This report describes interim test results. The initial PNL investigations of nonirradiated and spent fuels identified the important testing variables as temperature, fuel burnup, radiolysis of the air, fuel microstructure, and moisture in the air. Based on these initial results, a more extensive statistically designed test matrix was developed to study the effects of temperature, burnup, and moisture on the oxidation behavior of spent fuel. Oxidation tests were initiated using both boiling-water reactor and pressurized-water reactor fuels from several different reactors with burnups from 8 to 34 GWd/MTU. A 10/sup 5/ R/h gamma field was applied to the test ovens to simulatemore » dry storage cask conditions. Nonirradiated fuel was included as a control. This report describes experimental results from the initial tests on both the spent and nonirradiated fuels and results to date on the tests in a 10/sup 5/ R/h gamma field. 33 refs., 51 figs., 6 tabs.« less