FISM: A New Optimized Fuel Modeling Computer Code

Abstract

This work is part of an integrated R&D program aiming at developing a computer code that can be used in design review of nuclear fuel and in evaluation of its operational performance in pressurized water reactors. It presents a computer code, Fuel SIMulation (FSIM), which is developed by embedding optimized physical models in a general-purpose finite element computer code (TEPSAC) to predict fuel behavior during normal and operational transients. FSIM is a two-dimensional finite element computational code with axisymetric (r-z) modeling. It utilizes this technique to calculate the temperature, displacement, stress, and strain distribution in the pellet and sheath. The code can analyze the integral behavior of a whole fuel rod throughout its life, as well as localized behavior of a small part of the fuel rod such as cladding ridge deformation. To test the code, a sample problem is applied on a generic CANDU-6 reactor, where data of the fuel element and reactor operating conditions have been employed to FSIM. Output results are compared with that produced by ELESIM code and they show a reasonable agreement with that of ELESIM.