Sensitivity of stresses in TRISO-coated fuel particles to the coating layer properties

The stresses in TRISO-coated fuel particles under irradiation changed with the dimensional parameters, material properties, the irradiation temperature and neutron fluence. In this paper a fuel performance model with analytic solution was used to investigate the particle stress variation and SiC tangential stress sensitivity to these variables at the irradiation early and late stages. The calculation results indicated that coating layer thickness, PyC anisotropy, density and irradiation temperature significantly affected coated fuel particles stresses under irradiation. As for the stress sensitivity analysis, more attention should be paid to SiC thickness, PyC material parameters and irradiation temperature in further model study and the manufacturing process. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.