Inclusion of models to describe severe accident conditions in the fuel simulation code DIONISIO

Abstract

The simulation of fuel rod behavior is a complex task that demands not only accurate models to describe the numerous phenomena occurring in the pellet, cladding and internal rod atmosphere but also an adequate interconnection between them. In the last years several models have been incorporated to the DIONISIO code with the purpose of increasing its precision and reliability. After the regrettable events at Fukushima, the need for codes capable of simulating nuclear fuels under accident conditions has come forth. Heat removal occurs in a quite different way than during normal operation and this fact determines a completely new set of conditions for the fuel materials. A detailed description of the different regimes the coolant may exhibit in such a wide variety of scenarios requires a thermal-hydraulic formulation not suitable to be included in a fuel performance code. Moreover, there exist a number of reliable and famous codes that perform this task. Nevertheless, and keeping in mind the purpose of building a code focused on the fuel behavior, a subroutine was developed for the DIONISIO code that performs a simplified analysis of the coolant in a PWR, restricted to the more representative situations and provides to the fuel simulation the boundary conditions necessary to reproduce accidental situations. In the present work this subroutine is described and the results of different comparisons with experimental data and with thermal-hydraulic codes are offered. It is verified that, in spite of its comparative simplicity, the predictions of this module of DIONISIO do not differ significantly from those of the specific, complex codes.