Modeling and Analysis of Actinide Diffusion Behavior in Irradiated Metal Fuel

There have been numerous attempts to model fast reactor fuel behavior in the last 40 years. The US currently does not have a fully reliable tool to simulate the behavior of metal fuels in fast reactors. The experimental database necessary to validate the codes is also very limited. The DOE-sponsored Advanced Fuels Campaign (AFC) has performed various experiments that are ready for analysis. Current metal fuel performance codes are either not available to the AFC or have limitations and deficiencies in predicting AFC fuel performance. A modified version of a new fuel performance code, FEAST-Metal , was employed in this investigation with useful results. This work explores the modeling and analysis of AFC metallic fuels using FEAST-Metal, particularly in the area of constituent actinide diffusion behavior. The FEAST-Metal code calculations for this work were conducted at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in support of on-going activities related to sensitivity analysis of fuel performance codes. A sensitivity analysis of FEAST-Metal was completed to identify important macroscopic parameters of interest to modeling and simulation of metallic fuel performance. A modification was made to the FEAST-Metal constituent redistribution model to enable accommodation of newer AFC metal fuel compositions with verified results. Applicability of this modified model for sodium fast reactor metal fuel design is demonstrated.

Name thesis:degree_name

Nuclear Engineering

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Nuclear Engineering

Year

2013

Author dc:creator

• Edelmann, Paul

Contributors dc:contributor

• de Oliveira, Cassiano
• Cooper, Gary
• Mammoli, Andrea Alberto
• Popova, Marina

• nuclear
• fuel
• diffusion

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/ne_etds/2

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalrepository.unm.edu:ne_etds-1001