Summary

Programme	Social programme	Exhibition
Venue	How to get there	Call for papers
Accommodation	Registration	Visa
Contact	Technical tour	IAEA travel grants
Transactions	Presentations	Summary

RRFM' 2005 Summary

It is not my intention to give a detailed overview of all of this conference’s presentations, but rather to give a short overview of main messages, views, ideas and the progress made regarding the Fuel Cycle Management for Research Reactors.

The RRFM 2004 Meeting organized in Munich celebrated FRM-II Reactor Nuclear Commissioning. The RRFM move this year to Budapest celebrates European Union enlargement to Eastern European countries.

RRFM 2005: The conference Room

The first session including a status report on EU New and Candidate States Research Reactors utilization is therefore, devoted to subjects of general interest for the entire Research Reactor Community. For some decades to come, Research Reactors still will be needed to test, certify and qualify materials and fuels needed for future evolutionary innovative reactor concepts and fuel cycles for future fusion reactors and critical radioisotopes production necessary for medical treatments and diagnostics. As most of the currently active research reactors are ageing, some should be replaced in the near future to fulfill above mentioned tasks. Taking into account specific production criteria, it is recommended that at least one criteria be dedicated to the radioisotopes production.

Although the utilization of our Research Reactors is peaceful, it is however, not to be excluded that fresh or spent fuel can somehow be diverted to malicious uses, justifying American and Russian coordinated efforts to develop new fuels needed for global Research Reactor conversion to LEU.

RRFM 2005: Guided city walking tour

The second session (Fuel development, qualification and licensing) was, as in the last conferences, dominated by the development of new high density UMo fuels. After the recent discovery of abnormal behavior, unstable swelling of these fuels in particular conditions, the American, French, Russian and Argentinean groups set up plans to understand the observed unstable swelling, and to eliminate or mitigate this behavior by out of pile and in pile investigations. This work in now underway and could still last for several years. On the American side, however, the objective is still a qualification of UMo as dispersed fuel or monolithic fuel for the year 2010.

The third session was devoted to reactor operation, fuel safety and core conversion. The main American RERTR program objectives such as conversion and analysis, fuel development and supply and finally Mo99 target and process development (this last point still looks as a very sensitive and difficult point for some Mo99 producers using HEU) were reviewed. The overall program objective is to convert 105 reactors, including all major U.S. to LEU by 2014.

RRFM 2005: Conference dinner

Other main points in this session related to the nuclear startup and first FRM-II reactor operational experience, the reduced enrichment programs for the reactors FRM-II and HFR-Petten, the conversion experience of an American university reactor, the analysis of fission product release from research reactor fuel during accident conditions, a comparative analysis of power peaking factors for HEU and LEU fuel elements.

The main messages of the fourth and last session concerned the extension of the U.S. fuel take back program for another 10 years, the confirmation of the excellent reprocess ability of the UMo fuels by the dissolution of inactive and irradiated materials, research reactor fuel corrosion behavior during its final disposal and the solutions adopted by Netherlands and Finland for the storage and disposal of their research reactor fuels.