Characteristics of Uranium Dioxide (UO2) Kernel Produced by Sintering Process using Modified Sintering Reactor

Abstract

Sintering process is the final stage of fuel kernel manufacturing prior to the coating process. This stage is very important part of the whole process, because it will determine the feasibility of UO2 kernel to comply with the specifications of HTR reactor fuel. The objective of this research was to obtain UO2 kernel with the density of ≥ 95% TD. The results showed that the highest density reached 92.56% TD or about 10.1441 g/cm3. This condition of sintering was gained at the temperature of 1400 °C with sintering time of 2 hours. The sintering product diameter gained was around 919 μm the specific surface area 4.4213 m2/g, and a total pore volume 4,751 x 10-3 cm3/g. The density of UO2 kernel produced from this research is the best compared to previous finding because of its density already approaches the HTR fuel specification requirements.