Assessment of three European fuel performance codes against the SUPERFACT-1 fast reactor irradiation experiment

The design phase and safety assessment of Generation IV liquid metal-cooled fast reactors calls for the improvement of fuel pin performance codes, by enhancing their predictive capabilities towards uranium-plutonium mixed oxide fuels and stainless-steel cladding under irradiation in fast reactor environments. To this end, as a first fundamental step, the current capabilities of fuel performance codes must be critically assessed against experimental data from available irradiation experiments. This work is devoted to the assessment of three European fuel performance codes, namely GERMINAL, MACROS and TRANSURANUS, against the irradiation of two fuel pins selected from the SUPERFACT-1 experimental campaign. The pins are featured by a low fuel enrichment (~ 2 wt.%) of minor actinides (neptunium and americium), and by plutonium content and cladding material in line with characteristics envisaged for liquid metal-cooled Generation IV reactor fuels. The predictions of the codes are compared to several experimental measurements, allowing the identification of the current code capabilities in predicting fuel restructuring, cladding deformation and redistribution of actinides and volatile fission products. The integral assessment against experimental data is complemented by a code-to-code benchmark, focused on the evolution of quantities of engineering interest over time. The benchmark analysis points out the differences in the code predictions of fuel central temperature, fuel-cladding gap width, cladding outer radius, rod internal pressure and fission gas release, and suggests potential modelling development paths towards an improved description of the fuel pin behaviour in fast reactor irradiation conditions.

LUZZI Lelio;  BARANI Tommaso;  BOER Brian;  COGNINI Luana;  DEL NEVO Alessandro;  LAINET Marc;  LEMEHOV Sergei;  MAGNI A.;  MARELLE Vincent;  MICHEL Bruno;  PIZZOCRI Davide;  SCHUBERT Arndt;  VAN UFFELEN Paul;  BERTOLUS Marjorie; 

2021-08-10

KOREAN NUCLEAR SOC

JRC123574

1738-5733 (online),   

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1738573321002084,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC123574,   

10.1016/j.net.2021.04.010 (online),