A safer nuclear reactor

Patent number: 2740701

Authors: Alexey Yakushkin, Vladimir Borisov, Viktor Trofimov

Patent owner: Trinity Institute of Innovative and Thermonuclear Research (State Scientific Center of the Russian Federation TRINITY)

The cause of the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant was а sudden increase in the temperature of fuel rods (thin, hollow tubes, inside of which nuclear fuel is contained) which caused them to explode.

Fuel rods, being the heart of a nuclear reactor must be made of a material that is corrosion- erosion- radiation- and heat-resistant, have high ductility and low thermal neutron absorption cross-section.

The Russian scientists have come up with a technical solution that not only meets the above-mentioned criteria, but also prevents the swelling, depressurization, oxidation of zirconium by steam and subsequent explosion of fuel rods caused by loss of coolant (i.e., exactly what happened at Fukushima).

The new invention is a zirconium alloy fuel rod with a multilayer protective coating on its outer surface. The protective coating comprises at least one tubular layer made of composite material in the form of a metal matrix made of titanium, niobium, zirconium, or alloys thereof with a filler made of carbon nanotubes.