Irradiation experiments on high temperature gas-cooled reactor fuels and graphites at the high flux reactor petten

Because of its favourable design and operational characteristics and the availability of dedicated experimental equipment the High Flux Reactor at Petten has been extensively used as a test bed for HTR fuel and graphite irradiations for more than 20 years. Earlier fuel testing programmes contributed to the development of the coated fuel particle concept by extended screening tests. Now these programmes concentrate on performance testing of reference coated fuel particles and reference fuel elements for the German HTR-Module, the HTR-500 and to a lesser extent for the US HTGR concepts. It is shown with representative examples that these fuels have excellent fission product retention capabilities under normal and anticipated off-normal operating conditions. Extended irradiation programmes in the HFR Petten have significantly contributed to the database for the design of HTR graphite structures. The programmes not only comprise radiation damage accumulation in the temperature range from 570 to 1570 K up to very high fast neutron fluences and its influence on technological properties, but also irradiations under specified load conditions to investigate the irradiation creep behaviour of various graphites in the temperature range 570 to 1170 K.