Application of BISON to UO<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" altimg="si4.svg"><mml:msub><mml:mrow /><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:msub></mml:math> MiniFuel fission gas release analysis

Cheniour, Amani; Pastore, Giovanni; Harp, Jason; Petrie, Christian M.; Capps, Nathan

doi:10.1016/j.jnucmat.2022.153686

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Upcoming PIE performed on larger monolithic fuel disks, as discussed in this manuscript, is similarly expected to result in numerous process improvements. Application of fuel performance models to microstructure and fission gas release data collected from monolithic disks will also demonstrate for the first time use of an accelerated fuel irradiation test to benchmark fuel performance models Cheniour et al (2022).…”

Section: Post-irradiation Examination Of Tagged Uo 2 For Intentional ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Fission gas release will also be measured as the subcapsule is opened. The fission gas release in pure UO 2 resulting from these irradiation temperatures and burnups will be negligible for pure UO 2 Cheniour et al (2022), so any measurement of fission gas release above background would be a significant finding. Finally, examination of the resulting microstructure following irradiation can provide useful insights into how the taggant behavior or fission product phases evolve with irradiation.…”

Section: Post-irradiation Examination Of Tagged Uo 2 For Intentional ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Nuclear fuel irradiation testbed for nuclear security applications

et al. 2023

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The nuclear security community has long been interested in the identification and quantification of nuclear material signatures to understand a material’s provenance, use, and ultimate application. New forensics signatures and methods intended for non-traditional or advanced nuclear fuel applications require fuel irradiation experiments to demonstrate viability and validity. Integral fuel irradiations have historically required significant costs and long timelines to design, irradiate, and characterize. This paper describes how a recently developed nuclear fuel irradiation testbed can be used to provide a low cost, rapid turnaround, modular test environment for irradiation and evaluation of nuclear fuel specimens for nuclear security applications. The irradiation testbed houses six small ‘MiniFuel’ samples within hermetically sealed capsules inside targets that can be removed in between each ∼25-day operating cycle of the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR). As many as nine targets can be irradiated using a single irradiation position (reflector region) in HFIR, allowing for varying irradiation temperatures and burnups. A suite of hot cell capabilities have been established to perform post-irradiation examination for measuring performance (e.g., fuel swelling, fission gas release) and facilitating experiment disassembly for subsequent property measurements, microstructural analysis, or chemical assay. This new testbed allows fuel irradiations to be conducted on an accelerated timeframe to enable rapid proof of concept testing and to provide reference material for nuclear fuel security applications. Recent applications using this testbed include the testing of isotopic taggants in UO2 fuel (intentional forensics), testing of U-10Mo fuel for down-conversion of highly enriched uranium–fueled reactors, and the production of irradiated UO2 fuel material for signature analysis of its isotopic composition (plutonium, fission gases, etc.).

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Section: Post-irradiation Examination Of Tagged Uo 2 For Intentional ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Post-irradiation Examination Of Tagged Uo 2 For Intentional ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Nuclear fuel irradiation testbed for nuclear security applications

et al. 2023

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“…BISON is most often used to model UO 2 fuels in light-water reactors but includes capabilities to model a wide array of fuel forms and reactor types, including U-Zr-based fuels for sodium-cooled fast reactors (Greenquist et al, 2021a; and tristructural isotropic fuels (Schappel et al, 2020). BISON's open architecture enables it to model a wide array of materials, conditions, and geometries, including MiniFuel disks (Cheniour et al, 2022).…”

Section: Bison Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accelerated fission rate irradiation design, pre-irradiation characterization, and adaptation of conventional PIE methods for U-10Mo and U-17Mo

Doyle¹,

Massey²,

Richardson³

et al. 2023

Front. Nucl. Eng.

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Metallic U alloys have high U density and thermal conductivity and thus have been explored since the beginning of nuclear power research. Alloys of U with modest amounts of Mo, such as U-10 wt % Mo (U-10Mo), are of particular interest because the γ-U crystal structure in this alloying addition shows prolonged stability in reactor service. Historically, radiation data on U-10Mo fuels were collected in Na fast reactors or lower temperature research reactor conditions, but little is known about irradiation behavior, particularly swelling and creep, at irradiation temperatures between 250 and 500°C. This work discusses the methodology and pre-irradiation characterization results from a U-Mo irradiation campaign performed in the High Flux Isotope Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. U-10Mo and U-17Mo samples irradiations are being completed at temperatures ranging from 250 to 500°C to three targeted fission densities between 2 × 1020 and 1.5 × 1021 fissions per cubic centimeter. Swelling measurement of the specimen sizes studied here required development and assessment of new methods for volume determination before and after irradiation. Laser profilometry and X-ray computation tomography (XCT) were used to provide preirradiation characterization of samples to determine the error and applicability of each to determine swelling following irradiation. These outcomes are contextualized through use of BISON simulations performed to assess the predicted expansion of U-Mo fuels subjected to the irradiation conditions of this work. Use of existing BISON fuel performance models predicted a maximum of 7% swelling under the irradiation conditions of this study. Pre-irradiation characterization revealed the as-cast U-Mo fuel samples were uniformly large-grained fully cubic U crystals with small U-C/N bearing precipitates and pores distributed throughout. Samples were found to contain a bulk porosity between .4 and 3% because of the casting process. Local porosity in areas far from large, interconnected pores was found by Slice-and-View to be under .2%. Nanometer-sized precipitates rich in C and N were identified in all samples, likely because of impurities during the fabrication process. Dendritic bands were also observed throughout the samples. These bands were characterized by variable Mo content that deviated from the overall Mo content by 2–3 wt %. No other microstructural features were correlated to these bands. Mechanical properties were found to be slightly strengthened compared to literature reports of bulk U-Mo fuels due to the nano-scale precipitates throughout the sample.

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