Towards the inclusion of open fabrication porosity in a fission gas release model

A model is proposed for fission product release in oxide fuels that takes into account the open porosity in a mechanistic manner. Its mathematical framework, assumptions and limitations are presented. It is based on the model for open porosity in the sintering process of crystalline solids. More precisely, a grain is represented by a tetrakaidecahedron and the open porosity is represented by a continuous cylinder along the grain edges. It has been integrated in the TRANSURANUS fuel performance code and applied to the first case of the first FUMEX project as well as to neptunium and americium containing pins irradiated during the SUPERFACT experiment and in the JOYO reactor. The results for LWR and FBR fuels are consistent with the experimental data and the predictions of previous empirical models when the thermal mechanisms are the main drivers of the release, even without using a fitting parameter. They also show a different but somewhat expected behaviour when very high porosity fuels are irradiated at a very low burn-up and at low temperature.