A promising direction in the development of the next-generation fuel is the development of fully ceramic micro-encapsulated fuel (FCM). Such fuel has proven itself well in high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGR). The fuel consists of 200–700 μm in diameter microspheres made from the fuel material coated with a multi-layer ceramic coating. The standard four-layer coating used in HTGR reactors consists of three layers of pyrolytic carbon and a layer of silicon carbide. The technology developed at VNIINM for fabricating protective coatings consisting of only silicon carbide makes it possible to enhance the radiation and heat resistance of the coatings and, correspondingly, increase the fuel life. Calculations have confirmed the main advantages of the micro-encapsulated fuel with a silicon carbide coating over the conventional TRISO coatings. The use of such microfuel elements opens up the possibility of developing fuel elements capable of retaining fission products both under normal operating conditions and in design-basis and beyond-design-basis accidents. Variants of the design of rod-shaped accident-tolerant fuel (ATF) for water-cooled reactors based on micro-encapsulated fuel with silicon carbide coatings and cladding comprised of a composite of the type SiC–SiC are considered.

中文翻译：

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具有碳化硅保护涂层的前瞻性微封装燃料

下一代燃料发展的一个有希望的方向是全陶瓷微囊化燃料（FCM）的发展。这种燃料已在高温气冷堆 (HTGR) 中得到很好的证明。燃料由直径为 200-700 μm 的微球组成，该微球由涂有多层陶瓷涂层的燃料材料制成。HTGR 反应器中使用的标准四层涂层由三层热解碳和一层碳化硅组成。VNIINM 开发的用于制造仅由碳化硅组成的保护涂层的技术可以提高涂层的辐射和耐热性，并相应地延长燃料寿命。计算证实了具有碳化硅涂层的微胶囊燃料优于传统 TRISO 涂层的主要优点。这种微型燃料元件的使用开辟了开发燃料元件的可能性，该燃料元件能够在正常运行条件下以及在设计基准和超出设计基准的事故中保留裂变产物。考虑了基于具有碳化硅涂层和包壳的微封装燃料的水冷反应堆棒状容灾燃料 (ATF) 设计的变体，该燃料由 SiC-SiC 类型的复合材料组成。