Spectroscopic demonstration using commercial fuel

Samples of commercial fuel were taken from a high-burnup ATM-109 fuel (Vaidyanathan 1997). The ATM-109 fuel consists of 6 rods that were also produced by General Electric (GE). The rods were initially irradiated in the Quad Cities I reactor beginning in February 1979 until September 1987 in a normal assembly amassing an average exposure of 43 MWd/kgU. The rods were then moved to a carrier assembly and irradiated from November 1989 until September 1992. When removed from the reactor, the average exposure reached 79 MWd/kgU. The rods spent a total of 3508 on-power days in the reactor. Post-irradiation examinations were performed at GE’s Vallecitos Nuclear Center. The fuel sample dissolved for the spectroscopic demonstration had a burnup of 70 MWd/kgU and an initial enrichment of approximately 3%.