Results of the fuel performance code benchmark assessment

The main objective of the work carried out in the Task 5.3 of PATRICIA project is to assess the capability of different Fuel Performance Codes (FPCs) to simulate the behaviour under irradiation of Am-bearing fuels. The assessment of the modelling involved in the simulation tools is obtained by benchmarking the computation results against experimental data. Two complementary irradiation experiments are considered in this work, both performed in the past years in the High Flux Reactor (HFR) at Petten:SPHERE experiment with Minor Actinide Bearing Driver Fuel (U,Pu,Am)O2-x, and MARINE experiment with Minor Actinide Bearing Blanket material (U,Am)O2-x. The report describes the methodology implemented in this benchmark activity, based on the chaining of neutronic simulations with Fuel Performance Codes computations. This chaining was necessary for investigating further the conditions of the experiments. The outcome of this work is thus not only an assessment of the capabilities of the codes to simulate the irradiation of Am-bearing fuels, especially with regards to the inert gases behaviour – xenon, krypton and helium, but also a contribution to improve the interpretation of SPHERE and MARINE experiments.