Development of a model to predict fission product behaviour in spherical fuel elements during water ingress events

At PBMR gaseous fission product releases from spherical fuel elements under normal conditions are calculated by the code NOBLEG. The ability of NOBLEG to calculate noble gas and halogen release under oxidizing conditions during water ingress was developed. Observations made during the water vapour injection tests performed during the irradiation experiment HFR-K6, were used to determine simple relations that can be used to predict gaseous fission product release from spherical fuel elements under oxidizing conditions caused by small water ingress events, for PBMR operational temperatures. A new model was proposed to explain peculiarities observed during the water injection tests.