Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
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Towards a physics-based description of intra-granular helium behaviour in oxide fuel for application in fuel performance codes

  • Cognini, L. (Politecnico di Milano, Department of Energy, Nuclear Engineering Division) ;
  • Cechet, A. (Politecnico di Milano, Department of Energy, Nuclear Engineering Division) ;
  • Barani, T. (Politecnico di Milano, Department of Energy, Nuclear Engineering Division) ;
  • Pizzocri, D. (Politecnico di Milano, Department of Energy, Nuclear Engineering Division) ;
  • Van Uffelen, P. (European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Directorate for Nuclear Safety and Security) ;
  • Luzzi, L. (Politecnico di Milano, Department of Energy, Nuclear Engineering Division)
  • Received : 2020.04.07
  • Accepted : 2020.07.09
  • Published : 2021.02.25
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Abstract

In this work, we propose a new mechanistic model for the treatment of helium behaviour which includes the description of helium solubility in oxide fuel. The proposed model has been implemented in SCIANTIX and validated against annealing helium release experiments performed on small doped fuel samples. The overall agreement of the new model with the experimental data is satisfactory, and given the mechanistic formulation of the proposed model, it can be continuously and easily improved by directly including additional phenomena as related experimental data become available.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This research has received funding from the Euratom research and training programme 2014-2018 through the INSPYRE Project under Grant Agreement No. 754329.

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