Nuclear Fuel
ANATECH Corporation has established broad-based experience and expertise acquired over four decades in the area of nuclear fuel behavior and performance modeling. Marrying the disparate disciplines of finite element-based mechanics and material property and constitutive model development with the physics and chemistry of advanced metallic alloys and ceramics, ANATECH has become a recognized leader in the development of computational software for the analysis of Light Water Reactor fuel. Supported by data collected through fuel surveillance and hot cell programs, ANATECH has developed methods and computational software featuring combined steady state and transient thermal-mechanical modeling in two-dimensional R-Z and R-θ modeling regimes enabling analysis of nuclear fuel under both normal operation and accident conditions throughout the entire range of burnup.
These capabilities have allowed ANATECH to address the emerging issues and technical challenges on behalf of the nuclear industry starting in the 1970s. These areas include:
- Stress corrosion cracking and operation with hydrided cladding
- PCI (Pellet Cladding Interaction) analyses – pioneering R-θ local effects modeling
- Cumulative cladding damage index failure modeling
- Analyses supporting relaxation of operation restrictions (PCIOMRs)
- LOCA (Loss of Coolant Accident) analyses motivated by the TMI accident
- CILC (Crud-Induced Localized Corrosion)
- Secondary hydriding in BWR barrier fuel
- Post failure operational analysis
- RIA (Reactivity Insertion Accident) analyses motivated by the CABRI REP Na-1 test in 1994
- SED (Strain Energy Density)-based failure modeling
- PCI Fuel duty failures related to MPS (Missing Pellet Surface), and
- Comprehensive PCI operational guidelines development to minimize duty-related failures
ANATECH’s expertise has also found application for the assessment of spent fuel transport, dry cask storage, and in the design and development of fuel for proposed small modular nuclear reactor systems.
ANATECH is a participant in the Department of Energy’s NEAMS (Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation) and CASL (Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors) Programs. These programs provide indications of ANATECH’s status at the forefront of the development of computational modeling technology and its application for the analysis of nuclear fuel.
