Thermo-mechanical behavior simulation coupled with the hydrostatic-pressure-dependent grain-scale fission gas swelling calculation for a monolithic UMo fuel plate under heterogeneous neutron irradiation

Abstract

Abstract Monolithic UMo fuels have a higher uranium density than previously developed fuels. They have become the most promising fuels to be used in high-flux research and test reactors after the US Office of Material Management and Minimization Reactor Conversion Program (formerly Reduced Enrichment Research and Test Reactor (RERTR) program). In this study, a computational method is established to couple the macro-scale irradiation-induced thermo-mechanical behavior simulation with the hydrostatic-pressure-dependent fission gas swelling calculation in the UMo grain. The stress update algorithms and consistent stiffness moduli are respectively presented for UMo fuel, in which both the hydrostatic-pressure-dependent irradiation swelling and deviatoric-stress-directed irradiation creep are taken into account. Accordingly, the user subroutines to define the thermo-mechanical non-homogeneous constitutive relations for the UMo fuel meat and Al cladding are developed and validated. The in-pile behavior in a monolithic UMo fuel plate under a location-dependent irradiation condition is calculated and discussed.