Coated-Particle Fuels in High-Temperature Reactors: A Summary of Current Applications

Coated-particle fuels have been adopted for all of the current and proposed high-temperature gas-cooled thermal reactors: the General Atomic High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (HTGR), the OECD DRAGON Reactor Experiment, the German pebble-bed reactors (AVR and THTR), and the Ultra-High-Temperature Reactor Experiment (UHTREX) of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. In addition, coated-particle fuel is being considered for the British Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactor (AGR) in order to achieve higher fuel-surface temperatures. The design and operational characteristics of these reactors are summarized, and detailed descriptions and illustrations of their fuel elements, fuel compacts, and coated-particle fuel are presented. A comprehensive list of references is given for each reactor and its fuel.