Examples and Tutorials
One of the best ways to become familiar with BISON is to start running simulations. To help new users, and returning users looking to brush-up their familiarity, explore BISON, the BISON team provides several examples and tutorials for the different facets of BISON capabilities in projects/bison/examples.
NuclearMaterial Action
To aid users in a quick and efficient way to create input files, based on common nuclear material classifications, a group of NuclearMaterial Actions has been created. These actions help to significantly reduce the length of input files and the complexity of input parameters by generalizing the necessary blocks needed based on certain operating conditions. The construction of the needed blocks is done behind the scenes, and the number of user needed inputs is minimized. These actions can serve as entry in creating templates on which users can expand to meet their needs.
LWR
Typical water cooled UO ceramic fuel pellets. This can be subdivided into several different simulation types based on what is being examined or occurring during the fission process.
MetallicFuel
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.
TRISO
Tristructural isotropic fuel pellets are small spherical UO pellets coated with silicon carbide, pyrolytic carbon, and graphite layers.
Action Wizard
Assists users in learning to make input files through a interactive wizard that presents many of the most common parameters in a logical, straightforward way. Use it to get comfortable with the actions and practice.
NuclearMaterials Wizard
Wizard for building the NuclearMaterials action. Currently supports Normal fission and HighBurnup for LWR.
Typical LWR Analysis Geometries
The geometry and dimension used in a fuel analysis problem represents an optimization between simulation speed and localized detail. Presented below are the three most common geometries used in BISON for LWR fuel rod performance analysis; click on the heading to go to the geometry specific tutorial pages.
Layered 1D
Provides a quick simulation of a simplified fuel analysis model. Layered 1D models are ideal for simulations in which runtime speed is a prime consideration and localized effects can be neglected.
2D Axisymmetric
Models the axial and radial variations common in fuel while retaining the computational efficiency of a 2D problem. 2D Axisymmetric (2D-RZ) simulations are able to represent individual fuel pellets if needed.
Complete 3D
Enables the study of localized effects on the performance of a fuel rod. Full 3D models are most beneficial for simulations of non-symmetric fuel rods, including manufacturing defects on a single fuel pellet surface or localized loading conditions.
The most suitable geometry to use in a fuel rod analysis depends on the details of the specific analysis requirements.
Additional Tutorials
Beyond the light water reactor examples given above, BISON includes tutorials and guidelines for advanced topics, including changing geometry, different fuel rod types, and updating input files to the lastest mechanics capabilities. Click on the headers below to go to the tutorial sections.
Switching Dimensions
BISON's ability easily upscale and downscale among simulation dimensions allows users to focus both on running a large number of fuel rods and on examining detailed localized effects with similar input files. Tutorials for converting a model between the adjacent geometry dimensions in BISON for a LWR fuel rod are given in this section.
Advanced Fuel Examples
BISON includes the capability to model many other fuels beyond tradiational LWR ceramic fuel. Examples for four different advanced fuels are given in this section. Note that some of the capbabilities for these different fuel types are under current development by the BISON team.
Mortar Migration
The guidelines presented in this section will assist in the process of converting existing BISON simulations which use the conventional node on face contact approaches to a mortar formulation.
Statistical Failure Analysis of Fuels
BISON, through the MOOSE Stochastic Tools Module, is capable of conducting a statistical failure analysis of fuels to estimate important statistics such as the probability of failure and distribution of fuel parameters that cause failure. This section discusses the use of advanced Monte Carlo algorithms to simulate statistical fuel failure efficiently.
Grid-to-rod fretting wear modeling
BISON can model the evolution of wear on the cladding surface as relative displacements and contact between spacer grids and cladding material takes place. Wear is assumed to be small compared to the cladding thickness and the action of flow-induced vibrations is accounted for by time-dependent Dirichlet boundary conditions. This example outlines a simplified methodology that alternate between dynamic and quasi-static steps to predict wear over the life of a fuel rod.
These tutorials are intended as in introduction to these capabilities. If you have questions about these topics, contact the developers.