FRAPTRAN Predictability of High Burnup Advanced Fuel Performance: Analysis of the CABRI CIP0-1 and CIP0-2 Experiments
- CIEMAT, Unit of Nuclear Safety Research, Avda. Complutense, 22. 28040 Madrid (Spain)
Adequacy of analytical tools to estimate advanced high burnup fuel during a power pulse need to be soundly proven. Most of models in codes dealing with transient are extrapolations of those developed for lower irradiations. In addition, lack of open information prevents often a proper account of mechanical properties of new advanced cladding material. These circumstances make experimental programs on high burnup fuel performance an indispensable tool to enhance safety codes predictability through building up sound databases on which models can be extended or developed and on which suitable code performance can be proven. The experiments CIP0-1 and CIP0-2, carried out on 2002 in the CABRI reactor, can be seen as reference tests to investigate high burnup fuel response to RIA transients. Fuel rods of up to 75 GWd/tU (average rod burnup) encapsulated in advanced cladding materials (ZIRLO and M5) were submitted to power pulses of about 30 ms of half maximum width that injected 90-100 cal/g after 1.2 s. None of the rodlets failed during the experiments, but they underwent deformation that was experimentally determined. The FRAPTRAN code has been used for the analysis of these RIA tests. The fuel rod characterization necessary for FRAPTRAN at the end of the base irradiation, prior to the transient, was provided by FRAPCON-3. An investigation of major deviations of fuel rod characterization at the end of the base irradiation has highlighted that thermal uncertainties could result in outstanding discrepancies in FGR estimates. Transient comparison with the available data shows that FRAPTRAN presents a relatively good agreement in permanent clad hoop strain and overestimates significantly the axial elongation of the cladding. The potential effect of approximations made in describing the cladding mechanical behavior, the fuel-to-clad relative movement and the pre-transient gap width, have been all discussed. Given existing uncertainties, a conclusive statement could not be reached though. In addition, an examination of the potential effect of uncertainties in heat transfer modeling led to the conclusion that this factor cannot play a major role in the mechanical discrepancies found. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 21229323
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 2007 LWR Fuel Performance Meeting / TopFuel 2007, San Francisco, CA (United States), 30 Sep - 3 Oct 2007; Other Information: Country of input: France; 11 refs; Related Information: In: Proceedings of the 2007 LWR Fuel Performance Meeting / TopFuel 2007 'Zero by 2010', 683 pages.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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