| About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2021 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
| Symposium
|
Ceramic Materials for Nuclear Energy Research and Applications
|
| Presentation Title |
Modeling of Pressure-driven Inter-granular Fracture in High Burnup Structure UO2 during LOCA Using A Phase-field Approach |
| Author(s) |
Wen Jiang, Larry Aagesen , Kyle Gamble |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Wen Jiang |
| Abstract Scope |
UO2 has been widely used as nuclear fuel material for commercial light water reactors (LWRs). One of the current objectives of LWR operators is to extend current UO2 fuels to high burnups and ensure them to operate safely during accident conditions such as Loss of Coolant Accidents (LOCA). During a LOCA, it has been observed in experiments that the UO2 fuel can finely fragment and axially relocate within the rod resulting in the possibility of fuel dispersal upon cladding rupture. To understand the fragmentation mechanism, a phase field fracture model is developed to model the pressure-driven inter-granular fracture. The bubble pressure inside the bubble due to temperature transient is obtained by a phase field bubble pressure model. The simulation results will be used to assess whether the bubble pressure is sufficient to drive fracture and provide fundamental understanding of the fragmentation mechanism for high burnup structure. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Planned: |
| Keywords |
Computational Materials Science & Engineering, Nuclear Materials, Ceramics |