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M. Villa, R. Bergmann, A. Musilek, J.H. Sterba, H. Böck, C. Messick:
"The Core Conversion of the TRIGA Reactor Vienna";
in: "22nd International Conference Nuclear Energy for New Europe (NENE2013)", issued by: Nuclear Society of Slovenia; Nuclear Society of Slovenia, Ljubljana, 2013, ISBN: 978-961-6207-36-2, Paper ID 602, 6 pages.

The TRIGA Reactor Vienna has operated for many years with a mixed core using Al-clad and stainless-steel (SST) clad low enriched uranium (LEU) fuel and a few SST high enriched uranium (HEU) fuel elements. In view of the US spent fuel return program, the average age of these fuel elements and the Austrian position not to store any spent nuclear fuel on its territory, negotiation started in April 2011 with the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The sensitive subject was to return the old TRIGA fuel and to find a solution for a possible continuation of reactor operation for the next decades. As the TRIGA Vienna is the closest nuclear facility to the IAEA headquarters, high interest existed at the IAEA to have an operating research reactor nearby, as historically close cooperation exists between the IAEA and the Atominstitut. Negotiation started before summer 2011 between the involved Austrian ministries, the IAEA and the US DOE leading to the following solution: Austria will return 91 spent fuel elements to the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) while INL offers 77 very low burnt SST clad LEU elements for further reactor operation of the TRIGA reactor Vienna. The titles of these 77 new fuel elements will be transferred to Euratom in accordance with Article 86 of the Euratom-US Treaty. The fuel exchange with the old core returned to the INL, and the new core transferred to Vienna was carried out in one shipment in late 2012 through the ports of Koper/Slovenia and Trieste/Italy.
This paper describes the administrative, logistic and technical preparations of the fuel exchange being unique world-wide and first of its kind between Austria and the USA performed successfully in early November 2012.

TRIGA reactor, core conversion

http://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/PubDat_226249.pdf