Analytical simulation of nuclear reactor fuel elements

Fuel integrity is of utmost importance in nuclear reactors. This integrity is mainly affected in the form of power ramp cracking of sheath of the fuel, because of severe loading conditions and aggressive fission gas environment in the core of a reactor. To address this phenomenon on a mechanistic approach, in the case of Indian reactor fuel elements, a computer code has been developed. The three important modules of this code are A)Prediction of thermo mechanical behaviour of fuel elements, B)Prediction of fission gas release and C)Prediction of a failed fuel bundle. The code is augmented with pre and post processing capabilities. This code is used to simulate analytically the available experimental results in the literature for the threshold peak power for failure of a fuel bundle with burnup. A good match between the two results is observed. The present report brings out the details of different modules of this code along with the procedure adopted in obtaining threshold peak power for failure of a fuel bundle. (author). 8 refs., 5 figs., 1 tab., 3 appendixes