Artigo de peri??dico
Assessment of stainless steel 348 fuel rod performance against literature available data using TRANSURANUS code
Registro en:
2491-9292
2
10.1051/epjn/2016017
Autor
GIOVEDI, CLAUDIA
CHERUBINI, MARCO
ABE, ALFREDO
DAURIA, FRANCESCO
Resumen
Early pressurized water reactors were originally designed to operate using stainless steel as cladding
material, but during their lifetime this material was replaced by zirconium-based alloys. However, after the
Fukushima Daiichi accident, the problems related to the zirconium-based alloys due to the hydrogen
production and explosion under severe accident brought the importance to assess different materials. In this
sense, initiatives as ATF (Accident Tolerant Fuel) program are considering different material as fuel cladding
and, one candidate is iron-based alloy. In order to assess the fuel performance of fuel rods manufactured using
iron-based alloy as cladding material, it was necessary to select a specific stainless steel (type 348) and modify
properly conventional fuel performance codes developed in the last decades. Then, 348 stainless steel
mechanical and physics properties were introduced in the TRANSURANUS code. The aim of this paper is to
present the obtained results concerning the verification of the modified TRANSURANUS code version against
data collected from the open literature, related to reactors which operated using stainless steel as cladding.
Considering that some data were not available, some assumptions had to be made. Important differences
related to the conventional fuel rods were taken into account. Obtained results regarding the cladding behavior
are in agreement with available information. This constitutes an evidence of the modified TRANSURANUS
code capabilities to perform fuel rod investigation of fuel rods manufactured using 348 stainless steel as cladding
material.