SPHERICAL HIGH-TEMPERATURE FUEL ELEMENT

Considerable resources are being devoted in the USA and Great Britain to the development of high temperature fuel elements which contain the fuel in the form of coated particles. It is difficult in the case of spherical fuel elements to introduce the particles undamaged into a graphite matrix and to attain at the same time the required consistency. A process was developed in which the particles are introduced as a thin layer on the inner wall of a hollow sphere of electrographite. The internal surface of the sphere is provided, for example, with a very thin layer of a highly adherent graphite on which the particles are uniformly distributed by sprinkling. The essential advantage of the hollow sphere concept as compared with pressed elements lies in a lowering of the fuel temperature. (auth)