Preliminary research on the irradiation-thermal-mechanical coupling behavior simulation method of FCM fuel

Abstract FCM fuel (fully ceramic micro-encapsulated fuel) which is a promising ATF (accident tolerant fuel) candidate fuel. Establishing the irradiation-thermal-mechanical coupling behavior simulation method of FCM fuel accurately, would be very helpful for the optimal design of FCM fuel. In this research, TRSIO particles were assumed to be uniformly distributed in the silicon carbide (SiC) matrix, and the corresponding representative volume element (RVE) models were established. Based on ABAQUS commercial software, the thermal effects and irradiation effects of FCM fuel were all introduced into this numerical simulation by coding the UMAT subroutine, and then the irradiation - thermal - mechanical coupling behavior simulation method of FCM fuel was preliminary established. Compared with the simulation result of BISON software in open literature, the simulation results of this numerical simulation method are basically consistent with those of BISON software, the effectiveness of this numerical simulation method was preliminary verified.