A method for uncertainty and sensitivity analysis in fuel performance codes

Abstract

The present study proposes a method for the execution of uncertainty and sensitivity analysis on TRANSURANUS code, adapted for the use of stainless steel AISI-348 as the cladding material for a PWR reactor fuel rod, thus allowing to determine which input data are more relevant to the TRANSURANUS models, as well as a confidence interval for the results. The analysis was made through Monte Carlo sampling, where input values related to the geometry and composition of the fuel rod were taken from a normal distribution truncated around fabrication tolerance values. The generated samples were used as TRANSURANUS input data, and after numerous executions of the code, the results pertaining to the fuel center line temperature, fuel rod inner pressure and cladding strains were used to obtain a confidence interval and to make a variance-based sensitivity analysis, showing that the models used in TRANSURANUS are additive in nature, and input interactions are not relevant to the code.