The TRANSURANUS course gives a theoretical and practical basis of analysing thermal and mechanical performance of nuclear fuel in a nuclear reactor on various conditions. It shows how to prepare and use the TRANSURANUS code for analysing nuclear fuel behaviour and behaviour of gaseous fission products. The course is intended for young university-educated staff from technical support organisations, research centres, universities and industry. It will allow them to use the code for verifying compliance of the fuel with safety and design criteria, or for designing and interpreting experiments in a research reactor.
Scope
The course provides an overview of how nuclear fuel rods behave in the nuclear reactor during normal operating conditions, during an accident and during storage after irradiation. For each topic, the main phenomena are described along with the corresponding equations and underlying assumptions. The associated requirements for the input file of the TRANSURANUS fuel rod performance code are also explained. A separate exercise shows sensitivity of outputs to some of the input parameters.
The course participants will also visit JRC laboratories in Karlsruhe, where nuclear fuel is examined after irradiation. The visit includes both the large hot cells where the entire full rods can be examined, and laboratories where the fuel microstructure can be inspected.
In final exercises, participants use the TRANSURANUS code to solve problems based on selected cases from IAEA international benchmarking.
Following the exercises, successful participants obtain a certificate
Course organisation
The course duration is 5 days. It takes place in the Joint Research Centre Karlsruhe, Germany.
Organisers
European Commission, Joint Research Centre Karlsruhe, Germany
Learning outcomes
At the end of the training course, the participants should be able to:
- Understand the basics of nuclear fuel behaviour in a reactor, the corresponding equations and associated simplifications and limitations;
- Install the TRANSURANUS software on a computer
- Create a correct input file based on the information from the nuclear fuel rod fabrication and irradiation report;
- Implement new model parameters in the source code and create a new executable version of the code
- Extract and present the main outputs of the fuel performance calculations using a graphic user interface
- Verify the compliance with safety and design criteria provided by the IAEA
Who can apply
The course is meant for staff members of nuclear technical safety organisations, industry and research organisations as well as students from universities interested in the nuclear fuel rod behaviour. Only individuals from an organisation with a valid TRANSURANUS software license agreement can attend the training course.
Language of the course
English
Contact information
Paul [dot] Van-Uffelen
ec [dot] europa [dot] eu (Paul[dot]Van-Uffelen[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu), Arndt [dot] Schubertec [dot] europa [dot] eu (Arndt[dot]Schubert[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu), Zsolt [dot] Sotiec [dot] europa [dot] eu (Zsolt[dot]Soti[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)