BISON Validation to In-Situ Cladding Burst Test and High Burnup LOCA Experiments

Technical Report · Thu Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1888915· OSTI ID:1888915

Capps, Nathan ^[1]; Ridley, Mackenzie ^[1]; Bell, Samuel ^[1]; Yan, Yong ^[1]

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1. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

The process to develop and qualify nuclear fuels for commercial nuclear application requires fundamental material development, characterization, and design; out-of-pile testing on unirradiated materials; integral fuel rod irradiations, testing, and post irradiation examinations (PIEs); and transient analyses. The historical approach depends on the generation of large empirical datasets and series of integral fuel rod irradiations, and this approach ultimately takes approximately 20 years—or sometimes longer—to acquire data through extensive sequential testing. Thus, the qualification and eventual deployment of new fuel systems constitute a long and drawn-out process. However, recent technological advancements have provided researchers the opportunity to perform out-of-cell, in-situ measurements to assess material performance for the duration of the experiment. One such example of this capability is the use of digital image coordination and thermal imaging to assess Zircaloy cladding performance under a simulated loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) transient condition. In general, the in-situ measurements provide high-fidelity strain, strain rates, and temperature surface maps. This is critical for the United States nuclear industry, which is actively developing a technical basis to support extending the peak rod average burnup from 62 to ~75 GWd/tU and the deployment of accident-tolerant fuel. However, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, through their research information letter, outlined a number of technical issues for the industry to address before extending burnup. One topic of specific interest is understanding the cladding balloon and rupture geometry during the LOCA heatup phase. Leveraging these advanced in-situ capabilities, this work intends to use insitu data generated from a simulated LOCA in the Severe Accident Test Station at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to better understand high-temperature creep and its impact on Zircaloy balloon and rupture performance. This work used the BISON fuel performance code to compare BISON’s high-temperature creep model predictions to in-situ data and identify limitations and gaps within the model. Additionally, BISON will subsequently be used to simulate relevant high-burnup LOCA tests. The results will be analyzed and compared to the available post-test data in a manner consistent with the approach outlined in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission research information letter.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE), Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1888915
• Report Number(s): ORNL/SPR-2022/2532
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS