The Relationship between Experimental Data and Fuel Modeling in the Fuel Behaviour Analysis

The paper highlights the importance of a good knowledge of the fabrication data and operating conditions on the fuel behaviour simulation during irradiation experiments with the fuel performance codes. The TRANSURANUS code, developed at ITU and adapted at INR for the CANDU nuclear fuel, was used to simulate the Canadian experiments, FIO-118 and FIO-119, performed to investigate the effect of various design and operating parameters on the dimensional response of fuel during irradiation. The model parameters and some of the irradiation conditions were varied in order to study their influence on the calculations. The analysis was performed in correlation with the experimental measurements during the test (dimensional) and PIE results (microstructure, FGR). The study emphasizes that a good simulation with a fuel performance code implies a good knowledge of the code abilities that permits an appropriately selection of model options for each case analyzed. (author).