Recent Advances in Thermodynamic Calculations to Support Source Term Analyses in Multiple Reactor Designs

Abstract

Source term analyses of both conventional water-cooled reactors and advanced Gen-IV reactor types have involved thermodynamic calculations as part of a larger simulation effort, typically in an integral engineering code. Great progress has been made in recent years in advancing thermodynamic representations of multiple fuel types with fission products through database development, particularly through international coordinated research projects (e.g., OECD-NEA Thermodynamics of Advanced Fuels International Database (TAF-ID)). Multiple research projects at Ontario Tech with external collaborators have focused on computational and experimental investigations of fission product behaviour with multiple fuel types, including CANDU, BWR, TRISO, metallic fuel, and molten fluoride salts. Some recent progress will be presented, including using the TAF-ID to predict low-volatile fission product release in CANDU fuel, experiments of fission product solubility in fluoride salts, and fission product release from TRISO fuel.