Progress in Developing a New Thermochemistry Code for Corrosion Modelling and Multiphysics Simulation of Nuclear Fuels

Abstract

Nuclear materials are highly complex multiscale, multiphysics systems and an effective prediction of nuclear reactor performance and safety requires simulation capabilities that exhibit a very tight coupling between different physical phenomena. The Idaho National Laboratory's Multiphysics Object Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) provides the computational foundation for performing such simulations. The simulation platform currently consists of the continuum scale fuel performance code BISON, the mesoscale phase field code MARMOT, and a new application called YELLOWJACKET is under development to directly couple thermodynamic equilibrium and kinetics in order to model corrosion and fuel problems. As part of YELLOWJACKET, a thermochemistry code is being developed to provide rapid access to thermodynamic databases and perform thermochemical calculations for a range of different materials, which is currently in its infancy. This paper describes preliminary work in YELLOWJACKET development and plans for developing capabilities of practical interest to the nuclear industry.