Mesoscale modeling of the effects of accelerated burnup on UO2 microstructural evolution

Amani Cheniour, Floyd W. Hilty, Christian M. Petrie, Nathan A. Capps

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

Accelerating the nuclear fuel qualification process will rely on some combination of advanced modeling and simulation techniques with accelerated irradiation testing and separate effects experiments to enable the development of new fuel concepts in a shorter time frame. One of the key challenges to successfully leveraging accelerated irradiation tests will be understanding the artifacts that may be introduced with accelerated accumulation of dose and/or burnup. This work presents phase field (MARMOT) simulations of the evolution of representative 2D UO2 microstructures up to 40 MWd/kgU. Simulations were performed under both commercial light water reactor fuel conditions as well as those that would be expected for highly accelerated (∼10x) burnup conditions similar to those used in the MiniFuel irradiations in Oak Ridge National Laboratory's High Flux Isotope Reactor. The phase field model was coupled with a discrete nucleation algorithm to model restructuring at high burnup. The effect of the different fission rates in both microstructures was investigated at two temperatures: 650 C and 800 C. The lower temperature simulations both showed an onset of restructuring at nearly 60 MWd/kgU. More extensive restructuring was obtained in the MiniFuel microstructure compared with that of the PWR fuel. At 800 C, no restructuring was obtained as a result of the thermally activated diffusion of Xe atoms and U vacancies to fission gas bubbles, which reduces the nucleation driving force. These results highlight the importance of using modeling and simulation tools to inform the environmental conditions during targeted accelerated irradiation tests to extract the most useful fuel performance data.

Original languageEnglish
Article number155036
JournalJournal of Nuclear Materials
Volume595
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2024

Funding

This work was supported by the Advanced Fuels Campaign within the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy (NE). This research made use of Idaho National Laboratory computing resources, which are supported by DOE NE and the Nuclear Science User Facilities under Contract No. DE-AC07-05ID14517. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory collaboration was supported by the Materials Characterization, Prediction, and Control investment at PNNL. It was conducted under the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program at PNNL, a multiprogram national laboratory operated by Battelle for the U.S. Department of Energy under contract DE-AC05-76RL01830. The authors thank Daniel Schwen (Idaho National Laboratory) for the helpful discussions. This work was supported by the Advanced Fuels Campaign within the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy (NE). This research made use of Idaho National Laboratory computing resources, which are supported by DOE NE and the Nuclear Science User Facilities under Contract No. DE-AC07-05ID14517. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory collaboration was supported by the Materials Characterization, Prediction, and Control investment at PNNL. It was conducted under the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program at PNNL, a multiprogram national laboratory operated by Battelle for the U.S. Department of Energy under contract DE-AC05-76RL01830. The authors thank Daniel Schwen (Idaho National Laboratory) for the helpful discussions. Notice: This manuscript has been authored in part 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 ).

Keywords

  • Accelerated fuel qualification
  • Phase field
  • Restructuring

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