The design of high power density annular fuel for LWRs

Fuel performance models have been developed to assess the performance of internally and externally cooled LWR annular fuel. Such fuel may be operated at 30-50% higher core power density than the current operating LWRs, and to a burnup of 80-100MWd/kgU. The models are used to optimize the fuel design so that it is able to achieve high power density and high burnup, and to identify the features of this fuel that will impact its operation limits. The annular fuel performance codes have been developed based on the NRC licensed FRAPCON-3 code with major modifications to the code structure and with implementation of new fuel performance models. A heat split calculation was enabled by adding a heat flux iteration loop. The radial power peaking and the rim effects at both the inner and outer fuel surfaces have been modeled by a modified radial power/burnup fit to the neutronic calculations. The temperature profile calculation method was updated with new boundary conditions and meshing scheme to capture the internal cooling and the double power peaking at the rims. The annular fuel performance codes are able to simulate both sintered annular fuel and Vibration- Packing (VIPAC) fuel with internal and external cooling.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Nuclear Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Yuan, Yi, 1975-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Mujid S. Kazimi.

• Nuclear 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/1721.1/33640

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/33640