Media & Resources

High-Efficiency Ultrasonic Fuel Cleaning (HE-UFC^TM)

May 30, 2020

HE-UFC™ is a safe and effective way to remove activated corrosion products (commonly referred to as “crud”) and debris from PWR and BWR fuel bundles. HE-UFC™ has successfully mitigated crud induced power shift (CIPS), also known as axial offset anomaly (AOA), at PWRs and resulted in demonstrable improvements in radiological performance at both PWRs and BWRs. HE-UFC™ has also been credited with arresting persistent debris-induced fuel failures at several units through the removal of debris from fuel bundle bottom nozzles (thereby preventing debris transport into the fuel bundles during subsequent operation). The HE-UFC™ cleaning process takes approximately 3 minutes per fuel bundle and de-channeling is not required for BWR fuel.