Assessment of high-burnup LWR fuel response to reactivity-initiated accidents

The economic advantages of longer fuel cycle, improved fuel utilization and reduced spent fuel storage have been driving the nuclear industry to pursue higher discharge burnup of Light Water Reactor (LWR) fuel. A design basis accident, the Reactivity Initiated Accident (RIA), became a concern for further increase of burnup as simulated RIA tests revealed lower enthalpy threshold for fuel failure associated with fuel dispersal, which may compromise the core coolability and/or cause radiological release should this happened in LWRs. Valuable information on the behavior of high burnup fuel during RIA are provided by the simulation tests. However atypical design and operating conditions in simulated tests limited the application of experimental data directly to evaluate the failure potential of LWR fuels. To better interpret the experimental results and improve the capability of the fuel performance codes to predict high burnup fuel behavior, this thesis developed mechanistic models of high burnup fuel during an RIA and implemented models in a transient fuel performance code FRAPTRAN 1.3. Fission gas release (FGR) and swelling were systematically modeled to quantify gaseous loading effects. The grain boundary fission gas inventory is simulated prior to the transient using a diffusion model in FRAPCON 3.3 code. The restructuring of high burnup fuel in rim region is described in terms of porosity, pore size distribution, fission gas concentration, and pore overpressure. The model assumes the fragmentation of fuel upon the separation of grain boundary or when a threshold temperature is exceeded in the rim region. The fission gas in fragmented fuel is assumed to release instantaneously to the free volume when the fuel expansion and swelling creates sufficient pellet-clad gap.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Nuclear Science and Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Liu, Wenfeng, Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Mujid S. Kazimi.

• Nuclear Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/44786

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/44786