Verification of Bison fission product species conservation under TRISO reactor conditions

Abstract

When assessing the reliability and predictive capabilities of a simulation tool, code verification is used to ensure that the implemented numerical algorithm is a faithful representation of its underlying mathematical model, including partial differential or integral equations, initial and boundary conditions, and auxiliary relationships. During this process, numerical results in a discrete solution are compared to the analytical solution of the mathematical model. In this paper, the code verification process is applied to one-dimensional spatiotemporal problems that exercise partial differential equation governing the conservation of fission product species (or mass diffusion). Numerical experiments were performed in the Bison fuel performance code to evaluate its predictive capability under various TRISO reactor conditions such as base irradiation and safety heating test conditions for either short- or long-lived fission product species, as well as a case concerning evaporation from the outer surface of a particle. The code predictions were compared with the expected exact results obtained from the analytical expressions, and the fact that they demonstrate the correct analytical behavior provides strong evidence of proper numerical algorithm implementation.