TY - GEN
T1 - Pellet Cladding Mechanical Interaction as a Potential Failure Mechanism During a Control Rod Drop Accident in a Boiling Water Reactor
AU - Gamble, Kyle A.
AU - Toptan, Aysenur
AU - Simon, Pierre Clément A.
AU - Graham, Aaron
AU - Asgari, Mehdi
AU - Sarikaya, Baris
AU - Tusar, James
AU - Mahgerefteh, Moussa
N1 - Funding Information:
This research made use of the resources of the High Performance Computing Center at Idaho National Laboratory, which is supported by the Office of Nuclear Energy of the U.S. Department of Energy and the Nuclear Science User Facilities under Contract No. DE-AC07-05ID14517.
Funding Information:
This research was supported by and performed in conjunction with the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors, an Energy Innovation Hub for Modeling and Simulation of Nuclear Reactors under U.S. Department of Energy Contract No. DE-AC07-05ID14517.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Proceedings of the International Conference on Physics of Reactors, PHYSOR 2022. All Rights Reserved.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Boiling water reactors (BWRs) represent approximately one-third of the operating fleet in the United States, contributing significantly towards the global effort in reducing carbon emissions. Even though most of the operating fleet has been in operation for quite some time, continued advancements in new nuclear fuel (such as accident tolerant fuel) or operating regimes (such as power uprates and higher burnup operation) necessitates similar advancements in modeling and simulation capabilities. Bison, a component of the Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA), is a high-fidelity fuel performance code able to explore the fuel performance of a wide variety of fuel types in one-, two-, and three-dimensions. Until recently, the code had not been used for analyses of BWRs. Modeling capabilities have been added for Gd-bearing UO2 and pure zirconium liners. New models have been added based upon the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) guidelines for hydrogen pickup in Zircaloy-2 claddings and pellet-clad mechanical interaction (PCMI) failure during a reactivity insertion accident (RIA), known as a rod drop accident (CRDA) in BWRs. Implementing and/or improving Bison modeling capabilities extended its analytical reach to areas beyond its original intended purpose. This paper demonstrates one of these capabilities as a proof of concept. Recently developed models enable Bison to provide an alternate approach for cladding integrity determination in CRDA evaluations, which currently use bounding conservative estimates. As part of this demonstration, NRC guidance on hydrogen-pickup and PCMI failure models were utilized in this research. Even though more research is needed in establishing right inputs and process in this area, this paper demonstrates Bison's ability to determine cladding integrity in a CRDA evaluation. This first of a kind demonstration is a proof of concept in this area, which could potentially be extended to a number of other areas where a more accurate cladding integrity determination would be needed.
AB - Boiling water reactors (BWRs) represent approximately one-third of the operating fleet in the United States, contributing significantly towards the global effort in reducing carbon emissions. Even though most of the operating fleet has been in operation for quite some time, continued advancements in new nuclear fuel (such as accident tolerant fuel) or operating regimes (such as power uprates and higher burnup operation) necessitates similar advancements in modeling and simulation capabilities. Bison, a component of the Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA), is a high-fidelity fuel performance code able to explore the fuel performance of a wide variety of fuel types in one-, two-, and three-dimensions. Until recently, the code had not been used for analyses of BWRs. Modeling capabilities have been added for Gd-bearing UO2 and pure zirconium liners. New models have been added based upon the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) guidelines for hydrogen pickup in Zircaloy-2 claddings and pellet-clad mechanical interaction (PCMI) failure during a reactivity insertion accident (RIA), known as a rod drop accident (CRDA) in BWRs. Implementing and/or improving Bison modeling capabilities extended its analytical reach to areas beyond its original intended purpose. This paper demonstrates one of these capabilities as a proof of concept. Recently developed models enable Bison to provide an alternate approach for cladding integrity determination in CRDA evaluations, which currently use bounding conservative estimates. As part of this demonstration, NRC guidance on hydrogen-pickup and PCMI failure models were utilized in this research. Even though more research is needed in establishing right inputs and process in this area, this paper demonstrates Bison's ability to determine cladding integrity in a CRDA evaluation. This first of a kind demonstration is a proof of concept in this area, which could potentially be extended to a number of other areas where a more accurate cladding integrity determination would be needed.
KW - BWR
KW - Bison
KW - CRDA
KW - PCMI
KW - VERA
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85184962960
U2 - 10.13182/PHYSOR22-37711
DO - 10.13182/PHYSOR22-37711
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85184962960
T3 - Proceedings of the International Conference on Physics of Reactors, PHYSOR 2022
SP - 2196
EP - 2204
BT - Proceedings of the International Conference on Physics of Reactors, PHYSOR 2022
PB - American Nuclear Society
T2 - 2022 International Conference on Physics of Reactors, PHYSOR 2022
Y2 - 15 May 2022 through 20 May 2022
ER -