Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
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Investigation on the effect of eccentricity for fuel disc irradiation tests

  • Scolaro, A. (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL)) ;
  • Van Uffelen, P. (Joint Research Center (JRC)) ;
  • Fiorina, C. (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL)) ;
  • Schubert, A. (Joint Research Center (JRC)) ;
  • Clifford, I. (Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI)) ;
  • Pautz, A. (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL))
  • Received : 2020.05.22
  • Accepted : 2020.11.02
  • Published : 2021.05.25
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Abstract

A varying degree of eccentricity always exists in the initial configuration of a nuclear fuel rod. Its impact on traditional LWR fuel is limited as the radial gap closes relatively early during irradiation. However, the effect of misalignment is expected to be more relevant in rods with highly conductive fuels, large initial gaps and low conductivity filling gases. In this paper, we study similar characteristics in the experimental setup of two fuel disc irradiation campaigns carried out in the OECD Halden Boiling Water Reactor. Using the multi-dimensional fuel performance code OFFBEAT, we combine 2-D axisymmetric and 3-D simulations to investigate the effect of eccentricity on the fuel temperature distribution. At the same time, we illustrate how the advent of modern tools with multi-dimensional capabilities might further improve the design and interpretation of in-pile separate-effect tests and we outline the potential of such an analysis for upcoming experiments.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This work has been partially supported by the ENEN + project that has received funding from the Euratom research and training Work Programme 2016-2017 - 1 #755576. This work has been partially supported by a grant from the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) under project ID sm34.

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