Constituent Redistribution in U-Zr Metallic Fuel Using the Advanced Fuel Performance Code BISON

Technical Report · Fri Sep 30 00:00:00 EDT 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1329652· OSTI ID:1329652

Galloway, Jack D. ^[1]; Unal, Cetin ^[1]; Matthews, Christopher ^[1]

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1. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Previous work done by Galloway, et. al. on EBR-II ternary (U-Pu-Zr) fuel constituent redistribution yielded accurate simulation data for the limited data sets of Zr redistribution. The data sets included EPMA scans of two different irradiated rods. First, T179, which was irradiated to 1.9 at% burnup, was analyzed. Second, DP16, which was irradiated to 11 at% burnup, was analyzed. One set of parameters that most accurately represented the zirconium profiles for both experiments was determined. Since the binary fuel (U-Zr) has previously been used as the driver fuel for sodium fast reactors (SFR) as well as being the likely driver fuel if a new SFR is constructed, this same process has been initiated on the binary fuel form. From limited binary EPMA scans as well as other fuel characterization techniques, it has been observed that zirconium redistribution also occurs in the binary fuel, albeit at a reduced rate compared to observation in the ternary fuel, as noted by Kim et. al. While the rate of redistribution has been observed to be slower, numerous metallographs of U-Zr fuel show distinct zone formations.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
• DOE Contract Number: AC52-06NA25396
• OSTI ID: 1329652
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-16-27553; TRN: US1700396
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING
URANIUM BASE ALLOYS
ZIRCONIUM ALLOYS
BINARY ALLOY SYSTEMS
B CODES
EBR-2 REACTOR
ELECTRON MICROPROBE ANALYSIS
FUEL RODS
ZIRCONIUM
SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION
SODIUM COOLED REACTORS
FAST REACTORS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
ZONES