A delegation from Kazakhstan's National Nuclear Centre (NNC RK) has offered to provide its experimental equipment for tests of mixed nitride uranium-plutonium fuel (MNUP-fuel) for Russian fast neutron during a visit to Russia's NN Dollezhal Research & Development Institute of Power Engineering (NIKIET), which is chief designer of BREST. NIKIET executives "expressed their interest in the conduct of in-pile tests to investigate threshold destructive loads on the fuel of the advanced reactor BREST," and NNC RK statement said. NIKIET and NNC RK agreed to work out a programme within a month and to sign a cooperation agreement before October for studies of nuclear engineering items (tests of new types of nuclear fuel) at NNC RC's experimental facilities. These include reactors IVG.1M, IGR and VVR-K and a number of test rigs. NNC RK has unique technologies for in-pile tests including destruction of experimental nuclear fuel to the point of meltdown.
Also in June, Russia's Research Institute of Atomic Reactors (NIIAR) in Dimitrovgrad agreed to carry out another set of MNUP-fuel studies. These will include in-pile tests of MNUP-fuel in NIIAR's BOR-60 fast reactor. The cost of R&D contract is set at RUB209.5m ($3.2m), Rosatom's procurement website says. The work is to be completed by 1 November. NIIAR will also carry out research on the MIR reactor in-pile tests and post-reactor examinations of MNUP-fuel. The contract cost for this is RUB69.6mand the due date is 1 December. By this time, R&D costing RUB31.6m will also have been completed on the design, manufacture and post-reactor examinations of experimental fuel assemblies containing MNUP-fuel.
