Verification of Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor SUPERFACT-1 SF4/SF16 Fuel Rod Experiment using LoongCALF Code

Due to the high power density and deep burn-up of sodium-cooled fast reactor, its fuel has the characteristics such as high temperature, high fission gas release rate, large deformation, and the formation of central voids during operation. Therefore, the sodium-cooled fast reactor poses new challenges to the development of fuel performance codes. The LoongCALF code is a fast reactor fuel performance analysis code based on the finite element method and JFNK method. To verify the applicability of the LoongCALF code in the analysis of sodium-cooled fast reactor fuel performance, this work uses the LoongCALF code to simulate the SF4/SF16 fuel rods in the SUPERFACT-1 irradiation experiment, and compares the simulation results with those of fast reactor fuel performance codes such as TRANSURNUS, GERMINAL and MACROS in public literature. The research results show that the cladding temperature, fuel rod internal pressure, and pellet temperature calculated by the LoongCALF code are in good agreement with the literature results, and the axial central void diameter is in good agreement with the experimental results, which can meet the needs of sodium-cooled fast reactor simulation. Therefore, the LoongCALF code can be used for the simulation work of sodium-cooled fast reactors, but the related models of fission gas release and gap width need to be further improved.