Simulation of the behaviour of nuclear fuel under high burnup conditions

Soba, Alejandro; Lemes, Martín; González, M. E.; Denis, Anne; Romero, Luis F.

doi:10.1016/j.anucene.2014.03.004

Cited by 25 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…In the last five years, extensive focuses on radial distributions have been developed. For example, a phenomenological study is performed on the radial power density, the isotopic concentration, the burnup, and other properties of the UO2 fuel [17]. The radial structure of a fuel pellet at high burnup level is also analyzed [18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radial distributions of power and isotopic concentrations in candidate accident tolerant fuel U3Si2 and UO2/U3Si2 fuel pins with FeCrAl cladding

Chen

Yuan

Guo

2019

Annals of Nuclear Energy

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Monte Carlo simulations show similarity on radial distributions of power and isotopic concentrations at any effective full power depletion time among five kinds of fuel-cladding combinations with the same cycle length, including the normal UO2-zircaloy combination, the candidate Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) UO2/U3Si2-FeCrAl combination, and three kinds of candidate ATF U3Si2-FeCrAl combinations. An analytical formula f(x,s) including the fuel exposure (s) and the relative radial (x) is proposed to describe the radial properties for all five kinds of fuel-cladding combinations. f(x,s) has the form of the second order polynomial term of s with the exponential type of coefficients depending on x. It is shown that the suggested function f(x,s) gives a nice description on the simulation data with rather small deviations and can immediately provide radial distribution of power, burnup, and isotopic concentrations of 235 U, 238 U, 239 Pu, and 241 Pu at any fuel exposure and relative radius. It is useful to discuss the fuel temperature through the present analytical formula. The realistic radial power distribution gives flatter radial temperature distribution compared with the uniform power distribution. Because of the different thermal conductivities of fuels and claddings and the different thicknesses of claddings, the present discussed five kinds of fuel-cladding combinations have different radial temperature distributions, although their radial power distributions are quite similar. The present work provides an analytical formula to describe the radial properties of the ATF which is expected to be helpful for further neutronic and multi-physics coupling studies.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radial distributions of power and isotopic concentrations in candidate accident tolerant fuel U3Si2 and UO2/U3Si2 fuel pins with FeCrAl cladding

Chen

Yuan

Guo

2019

Annals of Nuclear Energy

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“…In TRANSURANUS model, a fixed neutron flux is assumed except for the absorption reaction of 238 U and 240 Pu [10], while the RAPID model considers detailed properties of the neutron flux at each burnup [11]. Recently, an empirical formulation is suggested to describe the local burnup and high burnup properties based on DIONISIO code [12][13][14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Simple Formula for Local Burnup and Isotope Distributions Based on Approximately Constant Relative Reaction Rate

Yuan

Wang

Chen

2016

Science and Technology of Nuclear Installations

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A simple and analytical formula is suggested to solve the problems of the local burnup and the isotope distributions. The present method considers two extreme conditions of neutrons penetrating the fuel rod. Based on these considerations, the formula is obtained to calculate the reaction rates of 235 U, 238 U, and 239 Pu and straightforward the local burnup and the isotope distributions. Starting from an initial burnup level, the parameters of the formula are fitted to the reaction rates given by a Monte Carlo (MC) calculation. Then the present formula independently gives very similar results as the MC calculation from the starting to high burnup level, but takes just a few minutes. The relative reaction rates are found to be almost independent on the radius (except (n, γ) of 238 U) and the burnup, providing a solid background for the present formula. A more realistic examination is also performed when the fuel rods locate in an assembly. A combination of the present formula and the MC calculation is expected to have a nice balance on the accuracy and the cost on time. *

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“…A simplified treatment consisting in reducing the energy spectrum to a single group was proposed in the past (Palmer et al, 1983). The calculation scheme chosen for DIONISIO was described in detail elsewhere (Soba et al, 2013(Soba et al, , 2014. It basically consists in adopting this simplification and restricting the balance equations to the more abundant isotopes: 235 U, 236 U, 238 U, 239 Pu, 240 Pu, 241 Pu and 242 Pu.…”

Section: Concentration Of U and Pu Isotopesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the other hand, a set of subroutines has been included to simulate the microstructural modifications that the pellet suffers at its external edge under high and very high burnup conditions (Lemes, 2013). Furthermore, subroutines designed to predict the distribution of Caesium, Iodine, Neodymium and Xenon in the pellet solid lattice were also integrated to DIONISIO 2.0 (Soba et al, 2014), on the basis of experimental information reported in (Lassmann et al, 1995(Lassmann et al, , 2003.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

DIONISIO 2.0: New version of the code for simulating a whole nuclear fuel rod under extended irradiation

Soba

Denis

2015

Nuclear Engineering and Design

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Simulation of the behaviour of nuclear fuel under high burnup conditions

Cited by 25 publications

References 21 publications

Radial distributions of power and isotopic concentrations in candidate accident tolerant fuel U3Si2 and UO2/U3Si2 fuel pins with FeCrAl cladding

Radial distributions of power and isotopic concentrations in candidate accident tolerant fuel U3Si2 and UO2/U3Si2 fuel pins with FeCrAl cladding

A Simple Formula for Local Burnup and Isotope Distributions Based on Approximately Constant Relative Reaction Rate

DIONISIO 2.0: New version of the code for simulating a whole nuclear fuel rod under extended irradiation

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