Abstract
Irradiation-enhanced densification (IED) is a form of sintering that occurs within ceramic nuclear fuels during reactor operation. It affects the fuel microstructure and density, which in turn affect the temperature profile and fission gas behavior. In this work, we modify the grand potential sintering model to describe IED. This new model is verified and used in several small test scenarios, demonstrating that its behavior is consistent with experimental data available in the literature. We use the model to gain additional insight into the mechanisms which drive IED: the effects of pore size, the effects of grain boundaries, and the interactions between neighboring pores. Based on these promising results, we propose further development of the model and completion of sensitivity analysis in order to inform future engineering-scale densification models.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 107858 |
| Journal | Annals of Nuclear Energy |
| Volume | 151 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Feb 2021 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
This work was funded by the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL) Program under subcontract with the Pennsylvania State University. The authors wish to thank the CASL program for their support. We also wish to thank everyone in the Idaho National Laboratory Advanced Modeling and Simulation Group as well as the MOOSE team for technical guidance and support. Computational resources were provided by the University of Florida Hipergator computer cluster. We also want to thank Arthur Motta at Penn State for greasing the wheels of this complex research arrangement.
Keywords
- Irradiation-enhanced densification
- Phase field
- Uranium dioxide