Fuel element design handbook

The economic development of nuclear reactors depends upon the integrated progress in the fields of reactor design, fuel element design, reactor operation, and fuel production and separation. Broad criteria, which restrict the fuel element design, are determined by the mutual consideration of the problems encountered in all the above fields. Hence, no stage of reactor design or operation is independent of the fuel element problem, nor can the fuel element designer disregard the interest of any one field. As an introduction to the fuel element design problem, this chapter describes how the general criteria for a fuel element are determined