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PROBLEMS OF CALCULATION MODELLING OF NITRIDE FUEL PERFORMANCE: DRAKON CODE

Jun 27, 2017, 1:30 PM
20m
Room 2 (Yekaterinburg)

Room 2

Yekaterinburg

ORAL Track 5. Fast Reactor Materials (Fuels and Structures) and Technology 5.10 Fuel Modeling and Simulation

Speaker

Mr Evgenii Marinenko (Institute for Physics and Power Engineering)

Description

The main life limiting factor of nitride fuel pins at high burn-up is fuel cladding mechanical interaction (FCMI) leading to strong deformation or even cladding destruction. The consequences of FCMI depend on fuel and cladding swelling rates, cladding creep rate, cladding long-term stress rupture etc. The calculation modelling problem arise from not enough data on nitride out-of-pile properties and in-pile behavior in dependence on plutonium content, fuel density, irradiation temperature, as well as lack of reliable data on irradiation steel cladding properties. Within the framework of the PRORYV project a comprehensive program for calculation and experimental studies of mixed nitride fuel for BN-1200 and BREST-OD-300 reactors has been designed to provide the required data. The DRAKON code is designed for numerical simulation of temperature and stress-strain state of fast reactors nitride fuel pins. The code verification was based on PIE data obtained after irradiation of standard FA of BR-10 reactor (uranium mononitride) and experiment BORA-BORA in BOR-60 reactor (mixed nitride fuel). The calculation results are in good agreement with the experimental data. It is planned to continue the code verification using the result of PIE of experimental FAs with nitride fuel, which are being irradiated now in BOR-60 and BN-600 reactors. Currently DRAKON code is used to study performance of the experimental nitride fuel pins of BN-600 reactor and to analyze the PIE results for such pins. As an example, the calculation results of experimental fuel pins with low-swelling FM steel cladding are given in the presentation. It is shown that there are two major limiting factors: 1) FCMI stress in the lower cladding sections with the "cold" fuel where cladding creep rate is negligible; 2) cladding damageability due to FCMI and fission gas pressure in the upper "hot" sections, where high-temperature strength of FM cladding is low. The fuel rod performance is limited by one of these factors depending on actual irradiation parameters.

Country/Int. Organization

Russian Federation

Primary author

Mr Evgenii Marinenko (Institute for Physics and Power Engineering)

Co-authors

Dr Liudmila Zabudko (Innovative &Technology Center by "PRORYV" Project) Ms Svetlana Ganina (JSC "SSC RF – IPPE”) Mr Vladimir Folomeev (JSC "SSC RF – IPPE”)

Presentation materials