Nuclear fuel performance simulations involve the modeling of complex physical phenomena, ranging from fission gas release to fuel swelling and other temperature-induced effects. For light-water reactors (LWRs), swelling of the fuel and the pressure it imposes on the clad when they come into contact causes permanent clad deformation. Accurately characterizing the fuel-cladding interaction, which involves multiple physics, is essential to accurately simulate the fuel/cladding system. Thermomechanical modeling of this problem using a variationally consistent enforcement (e.g., a mortar approach) has been shown to improve the quality of results and facilitate convergence. Here, we present a general multiphysics computational framework for solving nuclear fuel problems using a mortar approach in BISON, a nuclear fuel performance code. In this study analyses show that using the mortar approach, which enables variationally consistent constraint enforcement, improves the quality of results as compared to the more commonly used node-on-face enforcement for representative LWR nuclear fuel simulations.
Recuero, Antonio Martin, Lindsay, Alexander D., Yushu, Dewen, Peterson, John W., & Spencer, Benjamin W. (2022). A mortar thermomechanical contact computational framework for nuclear fuel performance simulation. Nuclear Engineering and Design, 394(1). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nucengdes.2022.111808
Recuero, Antonio Martin, Lindsay, Alexander D., Yushu, Dewen, et al., "A mortar thermomechanical contact computational framework for nuclear fuel performance simulation," Nuclear Engineering and Design 394, no. 1 (2022), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nucengdes.2022.111808
@article{osti_1895433,
author = {Recuero, Antonio Martin and Lindsay, Alexander D. and Yushu, Dewen and Peterson, John W. and Spencer, Benjamin W.},
title = {A mortar thermomechanical contact computational framework for nuclear fuel performance simulation},
annote = {Nuclear fuel performance simulations involve the modeling of complex physical phenomena, ranging from fission gas release to fuel swelling and other temperature-induced effects. For light-water reactors (LWRs), swelling of the fuel and the pressure it imposes on the clad when they come into contact causes permanent clad deformation. Accurately characterizing the fuel-cladding interaction, which involves multiple physics, is essential to accurately simulate the fuel/cladding system. Thermomechanical modeling of this problem using a variationally consistent enforcement (e.g., a mortar approach) has been shown to improve the quality of results and facilitate convergence. Here, we present a general multiphysics computational framework for solving nuclear fuel problems using a mortar approach in BISON, a nuclear fuel performance code. In this study analyses show that using the mortar approach, which enables variationally consistent constraint enforcement, improves the quality of results as compared to the more commonly used node-on-face enforcement for representative LWR nuclear fuel simulations.},
doi = {10.1016/j.nucengdes.2022.111808},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1895433},
journal = {Nuclear Engineering and Design},
issn = {ISSN 0029-5493},
number = {1},
volume = {394},
place = {United States},
publisher = {Elsevier},
year = {2022},
month = {05}}