An Integrated Approach to Examining Fuel-Cladding Chemical Interaction in U-10Zr Metallic Fast Reactor Fuels: Coupling Machine Learning with Electron Microscopy and Local Mechanical Properties Analysis
Metallic U-Zr nuclear fuel alloy has regained interest as a promising candidate for next generation sodium-cooled fast reactors. Recent studies and technology assessments have identified several areas where improvements, enhanced knowledge, and reliable data are needed to bolster the U-Zr fuel design basis for qualification and commercial use. One of the most constraining phenomena affecting […]
Metallic Fuel Performance Benchmarks for Versatile Test Reactor Applications
The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy’s Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) project is designing a new fast-spectrum test reactor. The VTR reference driver fuel design is sodium-bonded U-20Pu-10Zr (wt%) metallic fuel and HT-9 cladding. The BISON fuel performance code is being used to model the VTR driver fuel pin to evaluate the effects […]
Comparison of Zirconium Redistribution in BISON EBR-II Models Using FIPD and IMIS Databases with Experimental Post Irradiation Examination
Metallic fuels have seen increased interest for future sodium fast reactors due to their material properties: high thermal conductivities and advantageous neutronic properties allow for greater fission densities. One drawback to typical metallic fuels is zirconium redistribution, which impacts this advantageous material and its neutronic properties. Unfortunately, the processes behind zirconium migration behavior are understood […]
Fuel Performance Design Basis for the Versatile Test Reactor
The Fuel Performance Design Basis for the Versatile Test Reactor begins with requirements to maintain safe and efficient reactor operation. For the metal-fueled Versatile Test Reactor, this means a limited number of fuel rod breaches, no fuel melting under steady-state operation and anticipated transients, and continuity of the fuel rod and assembly configuration to avoid […]
Data Mining – Image Analysis of Radiography for Zr Redistribution
The research effort described in this report represents a first attempt to investigate the radial redistribution of Zr in ternary fuel alloys U-xPu-10Zr (x = 0, 8, 19) irradiated in the in-reactor fuel experiments during the operation of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II) at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) using […]
Fuel Performance Analysis of Fast Flux Test Facility MFF-3 and -5 Fuel Pins Using BISON with Post Irradiation Examination Data
Using the BISON fuel performance code, simulations were conducted of an automated process to read initial and operating conditions from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) database and reports, which contained metallic fuel data from the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) Mechanistic Fuel Failure (MFF). This work builds off previous modeling efforts involving 1,977 EBR-II […]
BISON fuel performance modeling optimization for experiment X447 and X447A using axial swelling and cladding strain measurements
With the recent need to qualify new reactor designs such as the Versatile Test Reactor (VTR), fuel performance calculations need to be performed to determine safety criteria of the proposed designs. In order to validate the fuel performance results obtained by a fuel performance code, BISON, for new reactor designs, legacy fuel from EBR-II and […]