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Multiphysics analysis of fuel Fragmentation, Relocation, and dispersal Susceptibility–Part 2: High-Burnup Steady-State operating and fuel performance conditions

Journal Article · · Annals of Nuclear Energy
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [1]
  1. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
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The US nuclear industry is pursuing increased cycle lengths and increasing the peak rod-averaged burnup in an effort to increase the economic viability of the US nuclear fleet. Increasing burnup will afford economic viability by enabling utilities to optimize core designs to reduce the number of fresh fuel assemblies per cycle and allow nuclear power plants to operate for a longer period of time. Longer operating periods will also decrease the number of outages experienced by a nuclear power plants and, therefore, offer utilities significant operational savings. However, extending the peak rod-averaged burnup beyond 62 GWd/tU results in operating fuel rods to higher burnup under higher power conditions. This operating regime is expected to result in higher fuel temperatures, fission gas release (FGR), and rod internal pressures (RIPs) that may challenge historical safety basis and affect high-burnup (HBU) experimental testing. In particular, these conditions directly affect fuel fragmentation, relocation, and dispersal (FFRD) susceptibility, so understanding the pretransient operating conditions is critical for developing test plans that evaluate the FFRD and develop strategies to mitigate it. This paper evaluates the operating conditions and fuel performance of HBU (greater than62 GWd/tU rod average) fuel. Additionally, it investigates fuel performance sensitivities and discusses the effect on fuel performance. Here, this work used two codes. Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA) was used to calculate steady-state power histories, identify HBU operating conditions using 10 different realistic HBU core designs, and down-select rods to a representative subset of fuel rods for subsequent BISON evaluation. The BISON fuel performance code was used to investigate steady-state HBU operating conditions and assess uncertainties associated with FGR and its effect on fuel temperatures and RIPs. The VERA and BISON results will provide direct input for HBU experimental testing and support subsequent TRACE and BISON transient fuel performance analyses.
Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725
OSTI ID:
1995702
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1989725
Journal Information:
Annals of Nuclear Energy, Journal Name: Annals of Nuclear Energy Vol. 192; ISSN 0306-4549
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (8)

Multi-Dimensional Simulation of LWR Fuel Behavior in the BISON Fuel Performance Code journal September 2016
Multiphysics analysis of fuel fragmentation, relocation, and dispersal susceptibility–Part 1: Overview and code coupling strategies journal October 2023
Stability and accuracy of 3D neutron transport simulations using the 2D/1D method in MPACT journal December 2016
Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis of fission gas behavior in engineering-scale fuel modeling journal January 2015
Full core LOCA safety analysis for a PWR containing high burnup fuel journal August 2021
VERA Core Simulator Methodology for Pressurized Water Reactor Cycle Depletion journal January 2017
Isotopic Depletion and Decay Methods and Analysis Capabilities in SCALE journal May 2011
Watts Bar Unit 2 Startup Results with VERA report March 2017

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11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
BISON
FFRD
High burnup
Nuclear fuel
Steady state
VERA