Modeling and simulation of oxygen transport in high burnup LWR fuel

Srdjan Simunovic, Theodore M. Besmann, Emily Moore, Max Poschmann, Markus H.A. Piro, Kevin T. Clarno, Jake W. McMurray, William A. Wieselquist

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

We have developed a formulation for oxygen transport in uranium dioxide nuclear fuel that accounts for the effects of irradiation. The overall simulation combines the evolving isotopic composition, thermochemistry, and oxygen transport in irradiated fuel. The driving forces for oxygen transport are computed from local thermodynamic equilibrium calculations and account for the effects of temperature gradients and composition, including fission products. The proposed method provides a mechanism for including complex thermodynamic models of nuclear fuel in modeling of mass redistribution, and alleviates difficulties associated with the common thermodiffusion formulation. The transport model has been implemented within the nuclear fuel performance code BISON utilizing the thermochemistry code Thermochimica, with burnup calculations provided by the ORIGEN isotopic transmutation code.

Original languageEnglish
Article number152194
JournalJournal of Nuclear Materials
Volume538
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2020

Funding

This research was undertaken, in part, thanks to funding from the Canada Research Chairs program ( 950–231328 ) of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada . Research was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy , Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation Program and Fuel Cycle R&D Program, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with UT-Battelle, LLC. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy 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 ). M.H.A. Piro thanks M.J. Welland (CNL) for many years of fruitful discussions on bridging classical thermodynamics and kinetics. Also, technical discussions with J. Sercombe (CEA) on PCI behaviour and fuel performance code are greatly appreciated. Research was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation Program and Fuel Cycle R&D Program, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with UT-Battelle, LLC. This research was undertaken, in part, thanks to funding from the Canada Research Chairs program (950?231328) of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Keywords

  • Nuclear fuel
  • Oxygen transport
  • Thermodynamics of nuclear fuel

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