A pellet-press-to-sintering-boat nuclear fuel pellet loading apparatus.

摘要

Apparatus (10) for loading friable nuclear fuel pellets (18) into a sintering boat (14) from a pellet press (12) which ejects newly made pellets. An inclined pellet chute (22) (preferably a tube) receives the ejected pellets (18) and discharges them against a first resilient brush (46) which reflects the pellets (18) downwardly to a second resilient brush (58). The brush tips are spaced apart such that a pellet (18) moving downward along the second brush (58) contacts the flexible brush tip of the first brush (46) before dropping off the second brush (58) (preferably with near-zero velocity) into the sintering boat (14).