Abstract
An approach to transform and accelerate nuclear fuel development and qualification is outlined. The approach exploits advanced modeling and simulation at the outset to inform constituent and system selection and to enable integral fuel performance analyses. Analyses using these tools identify and prioritize the most important fuel performance parameters and phenomena for subsequent targeted characterization with separate-effects tests. Separate-effects testing spans out-of-pile and in-pile tests and is meant to iterate with and inform engineering-scale integral fuel performance analyses throughout the development process. Exercising this cycle in an agile fashion will increase confidence in the integral fuel performance predictions while reducing uncertainties. This process sets the stage for executing a much more limited set of well-defined integral irradiation tests designed to validate engineering-scale fuel performance codes and to confirm the performance and safety of the fuel system under prototypic conditions. This approach will reduce the time for development and qualification of a new fuel system, and it will also reduce associated costs.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 152267 |
| Journal | Journal of Nuclear Materials |
| Volume | 539 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Oct 2020 |
Funding
The authors thank the perspectives and encouragement from participants of the first Accelerated Fuel Qualification workshop that was held on May 31, 2019, in Washington, DC. Representatives from US Department of Energy (DOE) contract DE-AC05-00OR22725, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), nuclear energy vendors, and utilities participated in the workshop and provided excellent insights and feedback. Christian Petrie and Jason Harp of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Nicholas Brown of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Ron Faibish of General Atomics performed a thorough review of the document and provided insightful comments. The support for compilation of this document came from DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy, jointly under the Advanced Fuels Campaign (AFC) and Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) programs. The authors thank the perspectives and encouragement from participants of the first Accelerated Fuel Qualification workshop that was held on May 31, 2019, in Washington, DC. Representatives from US Department of Energy (DOE) contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 , the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), nuclear energy vendors, and utilities participated in the workshop and provided excellent insights and feedback. Christian Petrie and Jason Harp of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Nicholas Brown of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Ron Faibish of General Atomics performed a thorough review of the document and provided insightful comments. The support for compilation of this document came from DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy , jointly under the Advanced Fuels Campaign ( AFC ) and Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) programs. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan ).