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	Fuel assembly with a water flow separated from the fuel rods - Patent 4526745
		A fuel assembly according to the invention is intended to be arranged in a reactor core in a conventional manner, with four fuel assemblies in each core module, water gaps between adjacent assemblies, and a control rod of cruciform cross-section in each module.
		The fuel rods 3 rest with their lower ends on a bottom lattice device or element 7, which rests on two vertical supporting plates 8, which are welded to a hollow, cruciform water distributing member 9, which is provided with connection openings for the water tubes 4 and 5.
		The fuel assembly shown has a vertical center line and is intended to be supported, together with three similar fuel assemblies, by a common supporting plate intended for four fuel assemblies, said supporting plate being constructed with a conical supporting surface and a circular throttling opening for each fuel assembly.
	www.freepatentsonline.com /4526745.html (1024 words)

	Smooth collet for pulling fuel rods - Patent 6895067
		The fuel rods contain fission material and are grouped together in an array organized to provide a neutron flux in the core sufficient to support a high rate of nuclear fission.
		4,297,776 teaches a loader which inserts fuel rods into a fuel rod grid by pulling the fuel rods into the grid using a leaf spring type collet that grabs the end of the fuel rod with the leaf springs when a puller rod is moved forward and releases the fuel rod by reversing this motion.
		The collet is attached to a long puller rod that grabs the end of the fuel rod by a forward motion of the puller rod and is easily removed from the fuel rod by reversing this motion once the fuel rod is in place and the puller needs to be retrieved.
	www.freepatentsonline.com /6895067.html (2220 words)

	Silkwood Finale: The Fuel Rods Are OK by Bruce Brown (from New York Times)
		In any case, they say the fuel rods' performance is not relevant to Miss Silkwood's original charges of flaws and coverups, or to the complicated and continuing litigation between the Silkwood family and Kerr-McGee.
		The quality of the fuel rods was an issue, but the case came to focus more on the contamination of Miss Silkwood's body with plutonium shortly before her death.
		Most of the fuel rods manufactured at Kerr-McGee in the two years that Miss Silkwood worked there were contained in fuel rod lots 14, 15, 16 and 17, the last two of which were shipped to Hanford lets than a month after her death.
	www.astonisher.com /archives/silkwood.html (1582 words)

	Reactor operation with failed fuel cladding
		The fact that fuel pellets were vacuumed from the environs of the MYAPC spent fuel pool clearly suggests loss-of-radiological controls occurred during reactor operations contaminating both the reactor vessel and the reactor water systems with mass-wasted fuel pellet-derived spent fuel isotopes.
		A fuel rod at the Perry Nuclear plant in Ohio experienced a cladding crack measuring 20 inches long, or nearly 13% of the fuel rod’s length, caused by secondary hydriding.
		Fuel rods in both assemblies are assumed to fail to evaluate the radiological consequences of the event.
	www.davistownmuseum.org /cbm/RadxFailedFuelClad.html (6671 words)

	Nuclear fuel cycle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Because of the fission process that consumes the fuels, the old fuel rods must be changed periodically to fresh ones (this period is called a cycle).
		The spent fuel rods are usually stored in water, which provides both cooling, the spent fuel continues to generate decay heat as a result of residual radioactive decay, and shielding to protect the environment from residual ionizing radiation, although after several years of cooling they may be moved to dry cask storage.
		Mixed oxide, or MOX fuel, is a blend of reprocessed uranium and plutonium and depleted uranium which behaves similarly, although not identically, to the enriched uranium feed for which most nuclear reactors were designed.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Fuel_rod (3331 words)

	Faulty Rods
		Fuel rods are zirconium alloy tubes that contain the radioactive uranium in reactor cores.
		While zirconium alloy rods fuel both, the rods in GE's reactors are subject to a particular type of failure that simply doesn't occur in pressurized-water reactors--a rustlike scabbing called nodular corrosion.
		Fuel rods weakened by nodular corrosion may be more susceptible to accelerated meltdown in case of other system failures--like a loss of coolant water surrounding the rods.
	www.motherjones.com /news/feature/1994/05/craddock.html (3674 words)

	Officials Scramble to Find Missing Nuclear Fuel Rods
		The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which oversees operations of the country's nuclear fuel plants, requires that the location of all nuclear fuel be strictly monitored, including where all fuel rods are at any given time.
		During a pre-sale inventory, the two fuel rods could not be found despite paperwork indicating that the rods were placed into a water pool at the plant in 1980.
		Spent fuel is stored either in water pools or in specially designed casks, both of which prevent deadly radiation from escaping into the environment.
	www.ens-newswire.com /ens/aug2001/2001-08-07-01.asp (710 words)

	Northeast Utilities says missing nuclear fuel rods safe Reuters 8oct01
		In a statement, Northeast Utilities of Berlin, Conn. concluded the rods are safely stored in one of four locations: radioactive waste disposal facilities in either South Carolina or Washington state, at a General Electric Co. nuclear facility in Pleasanton, Calif., or still in the Millstone Unit 1 spent fuel pool.
		The missing rods are about 1/2 inch in diameter and 158 inches, or about 13 feet long, and are filled with uranium pellets that trigger the atomic reaction that produces heat and powers a reactor's turbines.
		She said the rods are similar in size and shape to low power range monitors, which are also stored in the spent fuel pool.
	www.mindfully.org /Nucs/Missing-Fuel-Rods-NU.htm (604 words)

	Report: Iran Makes Fuel Rods for Reactors - CBS News
		Power-control rods, or fuel rods, contain low-enriched uranium and are inserted into a nuclear reactor's core to make the reactor run.
		It said these Iranian-produced rods were already in use in a 5-megawatt reactor built by the United States _ before Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution _ at the nuclear research center in Tehran.
		Boese said the power-control rod was a purely technical device used in any nuclear reactor.
	www.cbsnews.com /stories/2006/05/04/ap/world/mainD8HD41IO2.shtml (463 words)

	Hot Topics - 2 of 3: Induction Heating Makes Nuclear Fuel Rods Safer
		When engineers in the Commercial Nuclear Fuel Division (CNFD) at Westinghouse Electric Corporation received reports that, in rare cases, fuel rod cladding could be worn away by abrasive debris in the rushing water, they treated the problem very seriously.
		Because Westinghouse manufactures a variety of fuel rods, the system also had to be able to recognize and treat different types of rods in different ways.
		Since it would be inefficient to heat the fuel rods directly, due to the poor thermal conductivity of zirconium compared to steel, Lepel engineers designed an alternative process.
	www.lepel.com /IND/news3.htm (1073 words)

	Business: Dry storage of fuel rods won't happen at Crystal River
		Due to a lack of off-site storage facilities for spent fuel, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has allowed high-density storage in pools that were designed to hold far smaller inventories, according to a report published this year in the Princeton University research journal Science and Global Security.
		Because of the intense thermal heat generated by spent fuel newly removed from a nuclear reactor, increased storage density heightens the risk that the fuel could catch fire, which could lead to a catastrophic release of radiation, the report said.
		In addition to reducing the storage density of spent fuel, dry storage involves no moving parts and so is less susceptible to potential problems, according to David Lochbaum, nuclear safety engineer for the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington.
	www.sptimes.com /2003/07/14/Business/Dry_storage_of_fuel_r.shtml (529 words)

	USATODAY.com - Vermont engineers hunt for missing, deadly nuke fuel (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-03)
		The spent fuel rods are highly radioactive and would be fatal to anyone who came in contact with them without being properly shielded, Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan said.
		The pieces were part of a fuel rod that was removed in 1979 from the Vermont Yankee reactor, which is currently shut down for refueling and maintenance.
		The pencil-thin fuel rods are 12 feet long and filled with uranium pellets.
	www.usatoday.com /news/nation/2004-04-22-vermont-nukes_x.htm (531 words)

	Nuclear fuel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Metal actinide fuel is typically an alloy of zirconium, uranium, plutonium and the minor actinides.
		TRISO fuel particles are designed not to crack due to the stresses from processes (such as differential thermal expansion or fission gas pressure) at temperatures beyond 1600°C, and therefore can contain the fuel in the worst of accident scenarios in a properly designed reactor.
		In fuel which has been used at high temperature in power reactors it is common for the fuel to not be homogenous often the fuel will contain nanoparticles of platinum group metals such as palladium.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Nuclear_fuel (3717 words)

	BBC NEWS \| UK \| Q & A: Nuclear fuel voyage
		It is the result of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods by releasing the uranium and plutonium they contain and recombining them to create new, usable fuel rods.
		In theory the plutonium in the Mox rods could be converted for use in a nuclear weapon.
		In the unlikely event of an accident, the firm claims, and in the unlikely event of the rods coming free from their protective casings "it would be like dropping a marble into a glass of water" in terms of the amount of time needed for them to dissolve and pose an environmental hazard.
	news.bbc.co.uk /1/hi/uk/2255833.stm (583 words)

	Boston.com / News / Local / Vt. / Nuclear fuel rods still missing; more cracks found (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-03)
		Despite three weeks of searching through its nuclear fuel records from the past 25 years, Entergy Nuclear still hasn't found any documentation that shows where the two pieces of highly radioactive nuclear fuel are, Entergy Nuclear vice president Jay Thayer told a state nuclear advisory panel Tuesday.
		Thayer told the Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel that the fuel rod pieces from Vermont Yankee are probably in a low-level nuclear waste site in South Carolina or Washington state -- or in a now-closed federal facility in Beatty, Nev.
		Spent fuel is much more dangerous," said panel member Russell Kulas, a physicist and public member of the panel.
	www.boston.com /news/local/vermont/articles/2004/05/19/nuclear_fuel_rods_still_missing_more_cracks_found (439 words)

	deseretnews.com \| North Korea says it harvested fuel rods for nuclear weapons
		But their suspicions were aroused because by leaving the rods inside the reactor for another year, the North could have obtained a much better yield of weapons fuel.
		Or, they said, the North Koreans could have pulled the fuel from the reactor early because of technical problems, or because of fears that the United States would order a strike on the reactor, a step that President Clinton considered in 1994, during a previous crisis.
		Rods can be safely removed from a reactor shortly after a shutdown, nuclear experts said.
	deseretnews.com /dn/view/0,1249,600133237,00.html (1445 words)

	SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Nation -- Radioactive fuel rods, missing for three months, found at Vermont nuclear ...
		The news in April that the radioactive spent fuel segments, likely lethal to anyone exposed to them, were unaccounted for came at a sensitive time for the 32-year-old reactor.
		After the announcement that the fuel segments were missing, plant officials said they believed the segments were in cylinders welded to a bucket at the bottom of the 40-foot-deep spent fuel pool.
		Raymond Shadis of the nuclear watchdog group New England coalition said Tuesday that the discovery of the fuel rods in a separate cylinder raised questions about what had been in the bucket and what had become of it.
	www.signonsandiego.com /news/nation/20040713-1945-nuclearfuel.html (546 words)

	Private Fuel Storage, LLC: FAQs on Transportation
		Because of the robust nature of the shipping casks and the policies and procedures in place to safeguard shipments, there is insignificant risk involved in the transportation of spent fuel rods.
		Spent fuel rods, which have been "cooled" in reactor pools for at least five years, are stored in a passive environment with no chance of a chain reaction that could cause air-borne release.
		Experts agree that spent fuel rods are an unattractive target for terrorists for several reasons: First, a transportation cask will weigh 75 - 100 tons, and would require special equipment to handle it.
	www.privatefuelstorage.com /faqs/faq-transportation.html (2052 words)

	Steve Quayle News Alerts (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-03)
		The three rods, which were 18 inches in length when they were taken out of service, apparently have been sitting at the bottom of the plant's used fuel pool since the 1960s.
		The search for the rods began in June 2004 when the utility reported to the NRC the discovery of conflicting records on the location of three, 18-inch long segments.
		The records indicated that the segments were either stored in the used fuel pool in 1968 or were shipped to a licensed nuclear waste facility in 1969.
	www.stevequayle.com /News.alert/05_Nukes/050225.fuel.rods.html (396 words)

	NRC: Spent Fuel Pools
		The rods are moved into the water pools from the reactor along the bottom of water canals, so that the spent fuel is always shielded to protect workers.
		About one-fourth to one-third of the total fuel load from the pools is spent and removed from the reactor every 12 to 18 months and replaced with fresh fuel.
		Current regulations permit re-racking of the spent fuel pool grid and fuel rod consolidation, subject to NRC review and approval, to increase the amount of spent fuel that can be stored in the pool.
	www.nrc.gov /waste/spent-fuel-storage/pools.html (143 words)

	Russia
		The plant produced a sample fuel pellet in March 1999, in August it produced the first test batch, and planned to produce 2MT of the new pellets by the end of the year.
		Following the Gore-Chernomyrdin agreement, however, the reactors are to use the 90 percent enriched fuel throughout the entire core.
		The fuel will have a higher burn-up rate, resulting in spent fuel containing 20 percent or more Pu-238 and Pu-240; the fuel will not be reprocessed.
	www.nti.org /db/nisprofs/russia/fissmat/ufuel/novosibi.htm (3827 words)

	USATODAY.com - Fuel rods missing at Vt. nuclear plant (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-03)
		MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Two highly radioactive fuel rods from a Vermont nuclear plant are missing, plant officials said Wednesday.
		Engineers were searching the spent fuel pool at the Vermont Yankee plant for the small rods, which were removed from the reactor in 1979.
		One of the missing rods is about the size of a pencil.
	www.usatoday.com /news/nation/2004-04-21-vt-fuel-rods_x.htm (271 words)

	Online NewsHour Update: North Korea Says Fuel Rods Processed for Nuclear Bombs -- October 2, 2003
		North Korea said Thursday it had processed some 8,000 spent fuel rods that could be used to make atomic bombs, another in a series of moves in the ongoing nuclear standoff with Pyongyang.
		North Korea has said before that it completed reprocessing its pool of spent rods, but Thursday marked the first time it claimed to be using plutonium gathered from the rods to make nuclear weapons.
		"We will reprocess more spent fuel rods to be churned out in an unbroken chain from the 5 mw (megawatt) nuclear reactor in Yongbyon without delay when we deem it necessary," the statement said, referring to the North's nuclear plant.
	www.pbs.org /newshour/updates/northkorea_10-02-03.html (729 words)

	NEA/NSC : IFPE International Fuel Performance Experiments Database
		The aim of the project is to provide in the public domain, a comprehensive and well-qualified database on Zr clad UO fuel for model development and code validation.
		Siemens PWR rods irradiated in GINNA (released Mar. 2000)
		-Gd fuel rods with Zr4 cladding, irradiated in BR3 PWR (50 GWd/tU for peak pellet) (released Mar. 2002)
	www.nea.fr /html/science/fuel/ifpelst.html (1410 words)

	EUREKA / PG&E suspects 'missing' nuclear fuel rods never left
		An interim report to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission detailed "reasonable, but not conclusive, evidence" that deteriorated fragments recovered from the bottom of a used-fuel storage pool at the defunct plant in fact were the remains of the missing fuel rods.
		One record indicated the three 18-inch rods were dumped into the storage pool in 1968.
		An independent contractor, ATI Consulting, was hired to study the 40-year-old fuel rod fragments that were located.
	www.sfgate.com /cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/02/24/BAG2PBG2T61.DTL (338 words)

	FOXNews.com - North Korea Says It's Reprocessing Nuke Fuel Rods - U.S. & World (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-03)
		"As we have already declared, we are successfully reprocessing more than 8,000 spent fuel rods at the final phase," an unnamed spokesman of Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry said, adding that "interim information" was sent to the United States and "other countries concerned" last month.
		Fuel rods are used to power nuclear reactors.
		The uranium-alloy rods -- 1 inch in diameter, 21 inches long and 13.7 pounds each -- could yield enough plutonium for several bombs if they were put through a nearby radiochemical reprocessing lab, experts say.
	www.foxnews.com /story/0,2933,84495,00.html (1153 words)

	CNN.com - N. Korea 'reprocessing fuel rods' - Apr. 18, 2003
		Spent nuclear fuel rods in cooling pond, Yongbyon, North Korea.
		North Korea said Friday it was in the final stages of reprocessing thousands of spent nuclear fuel rods.
		A North Korean government spokesman announced Friday that it was "successfully reprocessing more than 8,000 spent fuel rods at the final phase...
	edition.cnn.com /2003/WORLD/asiapcf/east/04/18/nkorea.fuelrods (706 words)

	Planet Ark : NRC says nuke plant's missing fuel rods no threat (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-03)
		But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said there was no evidence the rods were stolen from Millstone's Unit 1 reactor and has accepted the conclusion of the plant's operators that the missing fuel rods were likely located in a licensed low-level radioactive waste facility.
		Inspectors from the NRC have been looking into the fuel rods since Millstone's operators told the agency in December 2000 that the rods were missing.
		Company records indicate the rods were last verified to be in the pool in 1980.
	www.planetark.org /dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14821/story.htm (500 words)

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