Vibratory compaction was studied making use of a pneumatic vibrator to pack sol-gel UO
2 powder in a thermal reactor type fuel canning tube. It is shown that the pneumatic vibrator utilized is superior to the commonly used electrodynamic vibrator from the view point of easy operation and high attainable density. Compared with the latter type, the pneumatic vibrator is less restrictive in the range of mesh size composing each fraction of the starting powder, and good results could be obtained with a powder with coarse, medium and fine fractions respectively having mesh ranges of 4∼6 (60%), 20∼65 (20%) and -200 (20%).
The selected operational conditions are: vibration frequency; 300 cpm, driving air pressure; 3kg/cm
2 and duration of operation; 10min.
Fuel rods of 100cm length compacted in these conditions with sol-gel UO
2 (particle density: 96% T. D.) attained a bulk density of 88.2±0.2% T. D. with an axial density distribution as uniform as ±3% T. D.
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