Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

The Canadian energy sector is rapidly evolving with the development and deployment of Small Modular Reactors (SMR) and Micro Modular Reactors (MMR) to provide clean, reliable, and affordable electricity, in addition to providing district heating for secondary applications such as co-generated steam, hydrogen production, or agricultural applications. These activities are in support of combating climate change through clean energy production, offsetting fossil fuel use in mining operations, and cogeneration to enhance efficiencies. There are also opportunities to enhance the standard of living of some communities, including providing reliable electricity and agricultural opportunities to remote northern communities. Some members of the Canadian nuclear industry have committed to a particular nuclear technology called the High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor (HTGR), which has a lower technology readiness level than existing nuclear stations. The objective of this project is to fill some knowledge gaps specific to nuclear fuel behaviours in HTGRs, known as "TRISO fuel", with the use of separate effects experiments and multi-physics modelling techniques. More specifically, some of the key knowledge gaps include fission product chemistry and fission product release under normal operation and accident conditions. This project will leverage experience from the applicant's previous Discovery Grant, Canada Research Chair, and various subcontracts with industry partners that have investigated nuclear fuel and fission product behaviour. The experimental approach will involve measuring the solubility of various fission products in different layers of TRISO fuel, which will significantly leverage an existing partnership. The modelling approach will involve thermodynamic assessments of some key fission products in the TRISO fuel used in these reactors, incorporation and usage of these models in state-of-the-art material databases (e.g., OECD-NEA Thermodynamics of Advanced Fuels International Database), and multi-physics simulations the thermochemistry code Thermochimica and the nuclear fuel performance code BISON. Key stakeholders include SMR vendors, Canadian utilities, and the nuclear regulator the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. The applicant is expected to leverage existing collaborations with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, and the University of Texas San Antonio on TRISO fuel experimental work for this modelling project. It is expected that the outcome of the work will be shared with the aforementioned stakeholders with the goal of providing support to the commercialization and deployment of SMRs and MMRs in Canada.