Advanced Fuel Examples

Bison includes the capability to model many other fuels beyond traditional light water reactor (LWR) ceramic fuel, including the five listed below. Simulations for these different fuel types generally differ from traditional ceramic fuels in terms of chemistry and rod geometry.

ATF and Cladding

Accident tolerant fuel (ATF) rods are concepts, which are designed to have similar or improved behavior in normal operation and provide increased coping time during design-basis accidents.

Metal Fuel

Metal fuels, U-Zr and U-Pu-Zr, are used in fast sodium-cooled reactors. The geometry of these fuel rods includes a larger plenum gap to accommodate higher burnup.

MOX Fuel

Mixed oxide (MOX) fuel is a ceramic fuel that forms a columnar structure as pore migrate to the center of the fuel during reactor operation.

Plate Fuel

Plate fuel is composed of enriched uranium or U-10Mo fuel sandwiched by metal cladding and is the most common fuel type in research reactors.

TRISO Fuel

Tri-structural isotropic (TRISO) fuel pellets are small spherical UO $var element = document.getElementById("moose-equation-44807fa0-04d0-4aa9-a683-0e077705aaab");katex.render("_2", element, {displayMode:false,throwOnError:false});$ pellets coated with SiC, pyrolytic carbon (PyC), and graphite layers.

Some of the capabilities for these different fuel types are under current development by the Bison team. Contact the developers if you have questions about these models and examples.