Bison Workshop

Friday, September 27, 8:00am-4:00pm

Bison is a multi-dimensional finite element nuclear fuel performance code based on MOOSE. It’s applicable to a variety of fuel forms including light water reactor, TRISO particle, and metallic fuel. It solves the fully coupled equations of thermo mechanics and species diffusion.

Fuel models used in Bison describe temperature and burnup dependent thermal properties, fission product swelling, densification, thermal and irradiation creep, fracture, and fission gas production and release. Plasticity, irradiation growth, and thermal and irradiation creep models are implemented for cladding materials. Models are also available to simulate gap heat transfer, mechanical contact, and the evolution of the gap/plenum pressure with plenum volume, gas temperature, and fission gas addition.

An overview of MOOSE and Bison will be presented, followed by examples of running Bison. The examples begin with solving the heat equation on a simple domain and evolve to a realistic multi-dimensional fuel performance simulation with thermo mechanics, contact, and fuel/cladding material models.

While the details of the workshop are still being planned, some interactive elements may be available to attendees with laptops. The Workshop will be presented by Stephen Novascone and Russell Gardner from the Idaho National Laboratory.

For more information please visit bison.inl.gov contact Russell Gardner at russell.gardner@inl.gov or Stephen Novascone at stephen.novascone@inl.gov.