Post Irradiation Examination And Fission Product Inventory Analysis Of Agr 1 Irradiation Capsules

The AGR-1 experiment was the first in a series of Advanced Gas Reactor (AGR) experiments designed to test TRISO fuel under High Temperature Gas Reactor irradiation conditions. This experiment was irradiated in the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and is currently undergoing post-irradiation examination (PIE) at INL's Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC). The inventory and distribution of fission products, especially Ag-110m, was assessed and analyzed for all the components of the AGR-1 capsules. This data should help inform the study of fission product migration in coated particle fuel. Gamma spectrometry was used to measure the activity of various different fission products in the different components of the AGR-1 test train. Each capsule contained: 12 fuel compacts, a graphite holder that kept the fuel compacts in place, graphite spacers that were above and below the graphite holders and fuel compacts, gas lines through which a helium neon gas mixture flowed in and out of each capsule, and the stainless steel shell that contained the experiment. Gamma spectrometry results and the experimental techniques used to capture these results will be presented for all the capsule components. The components were assayed to determine the total activity of different fission products present in or on them. These totals are compared to the total expected activity of a particular fission product in the capsule based on predictions from physics simulation. Based on this metric, a significant fraction of the Ag-110m was detected outside the fuel compacts, but the amount varied highly between the 6 capsules. Very small fractions of Cs-137 (