Apparatus for coating nuclear fuel pellets with a burnable absorber.

摘要

The invention relates to apparatus for sputter-depositing coatings upon nuclear fuel pellets.
<??>The apparatus includes a drum (14) having in its circumference open areas for receiving pallets (16) loaded with fuel pellets. Each pallet (16) comprises two separably joined screened parts defining therebetween a space for holding a single layer of fuel pellets, and the pallets are removably mountable in the respective open areas in the drum circumference so that their screened parts face radially with respect to the drum. During operation, the drum (14) is rotated within a hermetically sealed chamber (12) about a generally horizontal axis while a sputtering machine has stationary upper targets (26) thereof disposed inside the drum above its longitudinal axis and facing generally upward and radially outward, and has stationary lower targets (28) thereof disposed outside and below the drum and facing generally upward and radially inward, target material thus being sputtered onto the fuel pellets as the pallets on the rotating drum are moving past the targets.