Impact of improved neutronic methodology on the cladding response during a PWR reactivity initiated accident

Based on the DeCART solutions, several fuel rods are chosen for analysis with FALCON according to several relevant criteria. For each of the selected fuel rods, a FALCON study is performed using the boundary conditions provided by the neutronic solvers to predict the cladding response in terms of Strain Energy Density (SED) to the power pulse during the transient. The results of the analysis led to the following conclusions: