Post-irradiation Examination of Re-irradiated Fuel Assembly

The paper concernes in the features of re-fabrication and dismantling of the fuel assembly and the design of hot cell examination devices, as well as the non-destructive and destructive examinations of the fuel rods with the average burnup of 30. 9 GW · d/t and 6. 5 GW · d/t. Leakage tests of fuel rods were carried out at room temperature and high temperature, respectively. Results show that design of the dismountable fuel assembly and the hot cell examination facility is reasonable, remote operation is practical inside hot cell. Irradiated fuel assembly maintains structure integrity, but the spring of the grid presents relative strong relax. Performance of the fuel rods is nice, but the ridges and the reduction of fuel rods diameter are obvious. No failure fuel rod is discovered by different kinds of examination methods.