Influence of porosity formation on irradiated UO2 fuel thermal conductivity at high burnup

Based on the existing low temperature high burnup gaseous swelling model for UO2 fuel, the matrix swelling terms are calculated and the formation of total volume porosity up to burnup of 120 MWd/KgU is computed. The irradiated UO2 thermal conductivity model based on the Maxwell-Eucken correlation for porosity factor is selected as a case study and the calculation of porosity evolution with burnup is carried out. It is shown that taking into account the formation of porosity with burnup compared to the case with constant porosity equal to as-fabricated value leads to a decrease in the UO2 fuel thermal conductivity up to 15% at high burnup values of 120 MWd/kgU. Results of the calculations are also compared with the available experimental data and good agreement was found. The conducted parametric study clearly demonstrated the impact of the key parameters on the results of the present investigation.