Innovative BWR fuel from Westinghouse optimizes plant operation and reduces fuel cycle cost
With its best-in-class uranium utilization and thermal margins, TRITON11® fuel, the most recent BWR fuel innovation from Westinghouse, offers utilities the power to improve fuel cycle cost savings and optimize operations. Each key aspect of the TRITON11 design has been carefully considered, analyzed and tested to meet customers’ current and anticipated operational requirements.
Like Triton, the mythological messenger of the sea, the strength of the TRITON11 design comes from mastering the water – specifically, the use of three water rods that are connected to the bottom tie plate and top handle, creating the load-bearing structure of the fuel bundle. This creates a robust load chain and allows the fuel rods to be freed from external forces during fuel handling and operation, further improving reliability.
Compared with earlier fuel designs, TRITON11 has more fuel rods arranged in an 11x11 lattice, which improves safety margins, operational flexibility and fuel efficiency.
TRITON11’s superior design is equally matched with superior materials, offering the industry’s best fuel liner, as proven by 35 years of performance with only a single pellet-cladding interaction (PCI) failure. TRITON11 delivers the industry-leading reliability customers expect from Westinghouse, thanks to a distortion-resistant Low Tin ZIRLO™ fuel channel, effective StrongHold® AM debris filter and advanced sleeve-type spacer grids with less material, resulting in significant uranium enrichment savings and lower pressure drop.
To verify performance, in 2019, Westinghouse began a five-year test program for TRITON11 fuel, placing 18 lead test assemblies (LTAs) in two Nordic nuclear power plants. Each year, engineers inspected the fuel to see how it behaved under real reactor conditions, checking structural changes, corrosion, fuel rod behavior and resistance to debris damage. In addition, one water rod was extracted and sent to the hotcell for further examinations.
After five full operating cycles, inspections showed that the fuel performed exactly as expected, meeting all engineering and safety criteria and confirming it as a successful next-generation fuel for boiling water reactors.
To learn more about how you can harness the power of TRITON11 for your plant, Contact Us.
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