| About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2022 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
| Symposium
|
Advanced Characterization and Modeling of Nuclear Fuels: Microstructure, Thermo-physical Properties
|
| Presentation Title |
Multiphysics Modeling of Fracture in Sintered Uranium Dioxide Pellets |
| Author(s) |
Levi Daniel McClenny, Mohammad Abdoelatef, Moiz Butt, Hari Krishnan, Michal Pate, Kay Yee, Wen Jiang, Karim Ahmed, Sean McDeavitt |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Mohammad Abdoelatef |
| Abstract Scope |
Commercial nuclear power plants extensively rely on fission energy from uranium dioxide fuel pellets to provide thermal energy to the coolant in current generation reactors. UO2 fuel incurs damage and fractures during operation due to large thermal gradients between the fuel and the coolant in the reactor core. In this work we describe an experimental study performed to understand the fuel fracturing behavior of sintered powder UO2 pellets when exposed to thermal shock conditions, as well as a computational fracture model which accurately predicts the experimental results. Experimental data was collected from multiple experiments by exposing UO2 pellets to a cartescal bath (600-900 C) which are subsequently quenched in sub-zero water. We exhibit that the fracture results gathered in the experimental setting are consistently recreated in a computational setting, demonstrating a reliable ability to computationally simulate thermal shock gradients and subsequent fracture mechanics in the primary fuel source of LWRs. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Planned: |
| Keywords |
Nuclear Materials, Modeling and Simulation, Mechanical Properties |