Towards a physics-based description of intra-granular helium behaviour in oxide fuel for application in fuel performance codes

Abstract

In this work, we propose a new mechanistic model for the treatment of helium behaviour which includes the description of helium solubility in oxide fuel. The proposed model has been implemented in SCIANTIX and validated against annealing helium release experiments performed on small doped fuel samples. The overall agreement of the new model with the experimental data is satisfactory, and given the mechanistic formulation of the proposed model, it can be continuously and easily improved by directly including additional phenomena as related experimental data become available.

Keywords

• Helium behaviour
• Oxide nuclear fuel
• Meso-scale modelling
• Fuel performance codes