A review of TRISO fuel performance models

Several advanced reactor designs incorporate tristructural isotropic (TRISO) fuel particles to achieve high coolant temperature and high fuel burnup levels and thus require reliable and robust fuel performance models (FPMs) to evaluate reactor performance. This manuscript provides a detailed and concise review of the numerous published TRISO FPMs. The article begins with a brief review of TRISO fuel particles, before describing the important fuel behavior and failure mechanisms of TRISO fuel. Suggested material property correlations for use in TRISO fuel performance modeling are summarized with an emphasis on the limits of validity for those correlations and notes regarding their use and origin. A review of the major historical and current TRISO FPMs assesses each model’s capabilities and origin and provides a systematic comparison of the codes to document similarities and differences in their features. Finally, areas of improvement and unsolved problems are discussed that may limit the accuracy of TRISO fuel performance modeling.