Impact of fuel temperature on nuclear core design calculations

The operation of a nuclear power plant relies on precalculated nuclear design predictions based on core calculations of various reactor states. The fuel temperature is a crucial factor in determining the reactor fuel behavior, but assessing the temperature variation in a fuel pellet taking into account neutron transport is challenging. Detailed simulation of the temperature behavior within the fuel pellet can be obtained by coupling of Monte Carlo neutron transport codes with thermal-hydraulics solvers. However, this approach is not practical for standard nuclear design calculations, and computationally cheaper and faster methods must be used. In nuclear core simulators, a concept of a single "effective temperature" that yields the same neutron response as in the case of the actual temperature shape is mainly applied. This paper evaluates various fuel temperature models used in nuclear core simulation calculations, ultimately recommending a new effective temperature model that considers the burnup correction.