Research since 2003
In international cooperation, among others with France, Belgium and the USA, a working group of about twenty people has been conducting research at FRM II since 2003 on the development, fabrication and qualification of such fuels as well as on the development of suitable reactor core designs for the conversion of FRM II.
For this purpose, the working group exclusively uses the latest and best experimental and computer-aided methods, such as material characterization by means of high-resolution scanning electron microscopy with electron backscatter diffraction or three-dimensional simulation of the thermal-hydraulic conditions in the reactor core by means of computational fluid dynamics.
International Collaborations
Together with international partners from research and industry, the working group is also actively involved in international fuel research and the further development and validation of computer codes, and regularly presents its progress at conferences and in scientific publications.
Exemplary for the international cooperation is the HERACLES consortium, an association of the European fuel developers and manufacturers Framatome-CERCA (France), CEA (France), ILL (France), SCK CEN (Belgium) and TUM. In addition, there are close collaborations with the U.S. national laboratories Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Pacific-Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).
Scientific knowledge at the FRM II
Numerous scientific publications confirm the progress of the working group (see Publication archive of the MLZ).
The research of the working group is funded by a joint grant of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) with the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts (StMWK), as well as so far three EURATOM-funded projects (HERACLES-CP, LEU-FOREvER and EU-QUALIFY) within the HORIZON 2020 program of the EU Commission.
TUM Center for Nuclear Safety and Innovation
Since 2022, research on the conversion of FRM II has been taking place within the newly established TUM Center for Nuclear Safety and Innovation (TUM CNSI). At the same time, a new subdivision was created within the operation of FRM II to prepare and implement the conversion to a fuel element with lower uranium enrichment.