combustible Caramel

CONT: Les sous-marins nucléaires d'attaque utilisaient, au moins pour un temps, le combustible Caramel (un combustible à faible taux d'enrichissement) [...]

CONT: In the seventies, the CEA, in collaboration with its subsidiaries Sfec and Technicatome, developed a fuel with a low level of enrichment, Caramel. The CEA used complete cores of Caramel in the Isis and Osiris reactors. It recently abandoned use of Caramel in Osiris to the benefit of silicide fuel. Caramel fuel was and, it seems, may still be, used in submarines. Caramel fuel is composed of flat pastilles of uranium oxide enriched to about 7.5%. Each pastille has almost the shape and size of a true caramel, hence the name.
CONT: In addition to ... plate-type dispersion fuels, the CEA developed and tested the caramel fuel, consisting of sintered UO/sub 2/wafers in Zircaloy-clad plates ...