DAEJEON < invest Korea

According to Newsis,

[Daejeon = Newsis] Reporter Kim Yang-soo – The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) announced on the 19th that 'FAST-GAS,' a research topic proposed by South Korea, has been finalized as a next-phase research program for 'FIDES (Framework for Irradiation Experiments),' an international joint nuclear fuel research project organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Nuclear Energy Agency (OECD/NEA). The next-phase research will be conducted from 2027 to 2032.

FIDES is an international joint research project involving 28 institutions from 14 countries to verify the safety of nuclear fuels and materials. The FAST-GAS program proposed by South Korea is a task designed to precisely test and uate 'Fission Gas Release (FGR),' a core indicator for assessing nuclear fuel performance and safety. The core of this program is accelerated burnup testing to uate the fission gas release behavior of next-generation nuclear fuels.

KAERI emphasized the significance of this achievement, stating that its nuclear fuel technology research proposal was selected over numerous competing candidates through a multi-stage review and voting process by nuclear fuel experts worldwide, once again proving its world-class testing technological prowess.

In particular, among the eight programs selected for the next phase of FIDES, the FAST-GAS program is the only completely new program rather than an extension of a project from the current phase.

For this project, KAERI formed a consortium with KEPCO Nuclear Fuel (KNF) and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP), receiving support from the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF). Furthermore, prominent global nuclear fuel industrial and research institutions—including the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) of the United States, Westinghouse, Framatome, and the Idaho National Laboratory (INL)—will participate as core cooperative groups.

Through the five-year FAST-GAS international joint research starting in April 2027, the Korean consortium plans to secure diverse datasets by testing the burnup behavior of next-generation nuclear fuels such as Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF). By sharing these research results with participating countries worldwide, the consortium intends to lead research initiatives for next-generation nuclear fuel technologies.

To replicate high-burnup conditions in the research, accelerated testing will be executed using 'HANARO,' a multi-purpose research reactor. The project will deploy KAERI's entire lifecycle technological capabilities and experts across fields including actual nuclear fuel specimen manufacturing, performance analysis and modeling, irradiation testing, and post-irradiation examination (PIE).

Kim Dong-ju, Head of the LWR Nuclear Fuel Technology Research Department, who will lead the international joint research, stated, "The selection of the FAST-GAS program is a result of the global community officially certifying the reliability of South Korea's nuclear fuel technology." He added, "This will serve as a crucial opportunity for our nuclear fuel technology to establish itself as a global standard."

◎ NEWSIS, kys0505@newsis.com



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Source Text

Source: Newsis (May 19, 2026)

** This article was translated from Korean.