BISON fuel performance modeling optimization for experiment X447 and X447A using axial swelling and cladding strain measurements

Abstract

With the recent need to qualify new reactor designs, such as the Versatile Test Reactor, researchers need fuel performance calculations to determine the safety criteria of proposed designs. In order to validate the fuel performance results obtained by the fuel performance code BISON for new reactor designs, legacy fuel from EBR-II and Fast Flux Test Facility MFF with post-irradiation examination (PIE) data need to be used as validation cases to benchmark models. In this work, BISON has been paired with the Fuels Irradiation & Physics Database (FIPD) and the Integral Fast Reactor Materials Information System (IMIS) to supply PIE data for comparison with simulations of EBR-II experiments X447/X447A. X447/X447A were assessed by implementing models for a fuel-cladding chemical interaction (FCCI) within BISON and optimizing the friction coefficient between the fuel surface and the cladding, the anisotropic swelling factor, and the HT9 first thermal creep scalar (which scales the first term in the HT9 creep equation) to best match the PIE axial fuel swelling height and cladding profilometry for all pins in X447/X447A. The optimal values were found using a generic algorithm developed to select different values for the three parameters until end criteria was met and error couldn’t be reduced further. The BISON-simulated cladding profilometry was evaluated using a standard error of the estimate to account for the profile shape of the cladding profilometry. Optimal values for the friction coefficient, anisotropic fuel swelling factor, and HT9 first thermal creep scalar were found to best fit the BISON simulation results to the PIE measurements found in IMIS and FIPD. Possible improvements to current models to account for the underprediction of fuel swelling at low burnups and the overprediction of fuel swelling at higher burnups that is observed for the axial fuel swelling height are discussed. Although two pins in EBR-II, X447/X447A (DP70 and DP75), were known to fail due to FCCI, none of the pins simulated in BISON reached a cumulative damage fraction above 0.008 with FCCI correlations coupled in the BISON simulations. The error estimate generated for all pins in X447/X447A using optimal values was 209 µm, which is deemed acceptable.