Uranium 235 is used as a fuel in different concentrations. All processes involved in obtaining refining and using this fuel make up a cycle known as the nuclear fuel cycle. Nuclear fuel is the fuel that is used in a nuclear reactor to sustain a nuclear chain reaction these fuels are fissile and the most common nuclear fuels are the radioactive metals uranium 235 and plutonium 239.
The life of a fuel assembly in the reactor core is therefore regulated to a burn up level at which the risk of its failure is still low. Nuclear fuel operates in a harsh environment in which high temperature chemical corrosion radiation damage and physical stresses may attack the integrity of a fuel assembly. Uranium dioxide is a black semiconducting solid with very low thermal conductivity.
Most of pwrs use the uranium fuel which is in the form of uranium dioxide. Pressurised water reactors pwrs are the most common type of nuclear reactor accounting for two thirds of current installed nuclear generating capacity worldwide. Pwr nuclear fuel assembly the fuel assembly.
In pwrs the reactor core consists of assemblies of fuel rods featuring a zirconium alloy cladding holding uranium oxide pellets with uranium enriched to 4 u 235 or mox pellets mixed uranium plutonium oxides u pu o2 with a pu content of 5 10 fuel fabrication is the final step of the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle. Most nuclear fuels contain heavy fissile actinide elements that are capable of undergoing and sustaining nuclear fission the three most relevant fissile isotopes are uranium 233 uranium 235 and plutonium 239. Nuclear fuel is material used in nuclear power stations to produce heat to power turbines heat is created when nuclear fuel undergoes nuclear fission.
