16 Burnup
Burnup is a measure of the total energy released in fission by the fuel. Try to think of it as ‘fissionability’. If fresh fuel only has a certain amount of fissions, the more means more energy. This is only a very loose analogy.
The units of burnup are [latex]GWD/MTU[/latex].
Early designs of Generation II and III reactors were in the 30 GWD/MTU range, but Generation III+ and IV can reach 50+ GWD/MTU.
Additional notes
