Autonomous Inspection for Responsive and Sustainable Nuclear Fuel Manufacture (AIRS-NFM)

核能来自于原子分裂，是目前英国发电的重要组成部分，因为它是低碳的，不受天气的影响。为了使英国实现到2050年二氧化碳净零排放的承诺，核能提供了一种方式来抵消英国以前对燃煤和天然气发电的依赖，同时支撑可再生能源电力（海上风能和太阳能）中断的时期。目前核能的燃料是由铀制成的。除了一个核电站外，英国现有的所有核电站的燃料都是在西屋斯普林菲尔德燃料有限公司生产的，在普雷斯顿附近然而，在未来10年内，所有这些发电站都计划关闭。为了抵消低碳电力的这种损失，正在考虑新的反应堆设计，因为自1960年代至1980年代建造目前这一代运行的反应堆以来，核能的要求已经发生了变化：现在倾向于采用模块化设计，而不是现场建造的大型反应堆，这将更容易和更便宜，并且在提供电力方面提供更大的灵活性。在短期内，英国正在考虑小型模块化反应堆“SMR”，这是一种长期设计的小型版本，以及先进的模块化反应堆“AMR”，它将在更高的温度下以更高的效率运行。英国在这些新反应堆的燃料制造方面处于有利地位，因为斯普林菲尔德在铀成分范围方面比许多竞争对手具有更大的灵活性，但它需要在成本上具有竞争力。降低核燃料制造成本的主要机会是减少工厂生产的燃料不符合客户要求的可能性。当这种情况发生时，燃料必须通过该过程进行回收，在回收过程中消耗了不必要的能量，浪费了时间并产生了废物。在这项研究中，我们将研究在英国的铀制造过程，目的是调查它是否可以作出反应，以提高其效率和成本效益的变化。我们选择了两个意外变化可能破坏合规性的例子：铀浓缩和芯块质量。铀浓缩涉及燃料中铀-235的比例;铀-235是产生大部分能量的同位素。它是燃料规格的一个关键组成部分，因为浓缩在整个反应堆堆芯中不是恒定的，每个芯块的浓缩都很重要。浓缩受到原料（六氟化铀）变化和制造机械可能出现的故障的影响。我们将探讨是否可以采用当今最先进的伽马射线探测方法来测量过程中各个点的浓缩程度。我们将探讨这些测量值是否可以用来构成数据，用于调整工艺，以避免浓缩的变化，从而使对给定颗粒浓缩的影响最小化，从而消除对整个批次进行回收的需要。颗粒质量取决于几个因素：一个是它是否破裂。颗粒通过多种方式进行检查，包括在制造过程结束时由专家手动检查。在这一阶段，在颗粒被烘烤后可能会出现微观裂纹，这意味着它们可能会被削弱到超出适合在反应堆中使用的程度，或者它们的导热性可能不均匀等。我们将探索为此目的使用高光谱和高分辨率成像，目的是获得用于使过程响应的数据，例如，在整个批次受到影响之前，可以去除机器中导致开裂的逐渐发展的缺陷。

Nuclear energy, derived from splitting the atom, is an important component of current UK electricity generation because it is low carbon and it is not affected by the weather. In order for the UK to reach its commitment for net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, nuclear power offers a way to offset the UK's previous reliance on electricity production by burning of coal and gas, whilst underpinning periods when renewable sources of electricity (off-shore wind and solar) are interrupted.The fuel from which nuclear energy is derived currently is made from uranium. Fuel for all but one of the UK's existing nuclear power stations is manufactured at Westinghouse Springfields Fuels Ltd., near Preston. However, in the next 10 years, all of these power stations are scheduled to close. In order to offset this loss in low-carbon electricity, new reactor designs are being considered because the requirements of nuclear power have changed since the current generation of operating reactors were built in the 1960s-1980s: modular designs are favoured now in place of large reactors built at site, that will be easier and cheaper to build, and which provide more flexibility over the power that they provide. In the short-term, the UK is considering small modular reactors 'SMRs', that are smaller versions of a long-established design, and advanced modular reactors 'AMRs', which will operate at higher efficiencies at higher temperatures. The UK is well-placed to compete for the manufacture of the fuel for these new reactors because Springfields has more flexibility concerning the range in uranium composition open to it than many of its competitors, but it will need to be competitive on cost.A principal opportunity to reduce the cost of nuclear fuel manufacture is to reduce the likelihood that fuel produced in the factory is not compliant with customer requirements. When this happens, the fuel has to be recycled through the process, unnecessary energy is consumed in recycling it, time is lost and waste is generated. In this research we shall study the uranium manufacturing process in the UK with the aim to investigate whether it can be made responsive to change in order to increase its efficiency and cost effectiveness. We have selected two examples where unexpected change can undermine compliance: uranium enrichment and pellet quality.Uranium enrichment concerns the proportion of 235U present in the fuel; 235U is the isotope that is responsible for most of the energy that is generated. It is a key component of the fuel specification and, because enrichment is not constant across a reactor core, the enrichment of each pellet matters. Enrichment is influenced by changes in the feedstock (uranium hexafluoride) and by faults that might evolve in the manufacturing machinery. We will explore whether the most advanced ways of detecting gamma rays available today can be employed to yield a measurement of enrichment at various points in the process. We will explore whether these measurements can be used to constitute data to be used to adjust the process to avert a change in enrichment, so that the effect on the enrichment of a given pellet can be minimised and hence the need for a whole batch to be recycled is removed.Pellet quality is premised on several factors: one is whether it is cracked or not. Pellets are checked by a variety of means including manually by experts at the end of the manufacturing process. At this stage microscopic cracks can be present occurring after the pellets are baked implying that they could be weakened beyond what is suitable for use in a reactor or that their thermal conductivity may not be uniform etc. We shall explore the use of hyperspectral and high-resolution imaging for this purpose, with the aim of deriving data for use in rendering the process responsive, so that, for example, an evolving flaw in a machine that is causing cracking can be removed before a whole batch is affected.