• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Conference
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• 1999.06a
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• pp.310-316
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• 1999

The fretting wear characteristics of the contact between Zircaloy-4 tube and Inconel 600 tube have investigated. Zircaloy-4 is used for fuel rod in nuclear reactor and Inconel 600 is used for tube In steam generator of nuclear power plant. A fretting wear tester was designed to be suitable for this fretting test. In this study, the number of cycles, slip amplitude and normal load were selected as main factors of fretting wear. This study shows that the wear scar length of Zircaloy-4 and Inconel 600 increases as number of cycles, normal load and slip amplitude increase and the wear scar length of Zircaloy-4 is more longer than that of Inconel 600 due to the surface hardness.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.88-95
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• 2002

Fretting of fuel rod cladding material, Zircaloy-4 Tube, in PWR nuclear power plants must be reduced and avoided. Nowadays the introduction of surface treatments or coatings is expected to bean ideal solution to fretting damage since fretting is closely related to wear, corrosion and fatigue. Therefore, in this study the fretting wear experiment was peformed using TiAIN coated Zircaloy-4 tube as the fuel rod cladding and uncoated Zircaioy-4 tube as one of grids, especially concentrating on the sliding component. Fretting wear resistance of TiAIN coated Zircaloy-4 tubes was improved compared with that of TiN coated tubes and uncoated tubes and the fretting wear mechanisms were delamination and plastic flow following by brittle fracture at lower slip amplitude but severe oxidation and spallation of oxidative layer at higher slip amplitude.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.88-94
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• 1998

The fretting wear characteristics of Zircaloy-4 tube in light water were investigated experimentally. A fretting wear tester was designed to be suitable for this fretting test. This study was focused on the effects due to the combination of normal load, slip amplitude and number of cycles as the main factors of fretting. The results of this study showed that the wear volume increased abruptly at slip amplitude above 100 ${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$, which is defined as critical slip amplitude of Zircaloy-4 tube in light water, and that under 160 ${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ the wear volume decreased as load increased at the same slip amplitude.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Conference
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• 1998.04a
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• pp.55-63
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• 1998

The fretting wear characteristics of Zircaloy-4 tube in light water were investigated experimentally. A fretting wear tester was designed to be suitable for this fretting test. This study was focused on the effects due to the combination of normal load, slip amplitude and number of cycles as the main factors of fretting. The results of this study showed that the wear volume increased abruptly at slip amplitude above 100$\mu$m, which is defined as critical slip amplitude of Zircaloy-4 tube in light water, and that under 160$\mu$m the wear volume decreased as load increased at the same slip amplitude.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.355-360
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• 2001

Design requirements for the nuclear fuel assembly grid of the pressurized light water reactor(PLWR) are scrutinized from the mechanical/structural point of view. As a result of the scrunity, mechanical/structural test facilities on the spacer grid of the PLWR Fuel are set up in KAERI to find out their mechanical/structural performance.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.453-458
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• 2001

The fretting wear of a nuclear fuel rod it a dangerous phenomenon. In this study, TiN coating was used to reduce the fretting wear of Zircaloy-4 tube, a nuclear fuel rod cladding material. TiN coating is probably one of the molt frequently and successfully used PVD coatings for the mitigation of fretting wear. The fretting tester was designed and manufactured for this experiment. The number of cycles, slip amplitude and normal load were selected as main factors of fretting wear. The results of this research showed that wear volume was improved 1.3∼3.2 times with TiN coating. The worn surfaces were observed by SEM. Wear mechanism at lower slip amplitude was the brittle cracks and rupture of TiN coating. However, adhesive and abrasive wear were mainly observed on most surfaces at higher slip amplitude.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Conference
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• 1999.11a
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• pp.71-77
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• 1999

The fretting wear characteristics of STS304 steel in seawater were investigated experimentally. A fretting wear tester was designed to be suitable for this fretting test. This study was focused on the effects due to the combination of normal load, slip amplitude and number of cycles and corrosive environment as the main factors of fretting. The results of this study showed that the wear volume increased abruptly at slip amplitude between 70${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$~ 100${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ by fracture of oxide layers but above that slip amplitude the wear volume increased steadily.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Conference
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• 2001.06a
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• pp.89-95
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• 2001

The fretting wear characteristics of Zircaloy-4 tube at room and high temperature were Investigated experimentally. In this study, the number of cycles, slip amplitude and temperature were selected as main factors of fretting wear. The results of this research showed that the wear volume Increased with the Increase of slip amplitudes and the number of cycles but decreased with temperature and the coefficient of friction were observed different tendency between room and high temperature. According to SEM(EDS) only gross slip were observed on the surface of both specimens and compacted oxide were on worn surfaces. XRO patterns showed that the crystallization of ZrO$_2$ were observed on the worn surface at high temperature. The fretting wear were Investigated due to oxidation and accumulation of plastic flow.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.313-323
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• 2003

The sliding wear behaviors of Zircaloy-4 nuclear fuel rod were investigated using two support springs with convex and concave shapes in room temperature air and water. The main focus is to compare the wear behavior of various test variables such as slip amplitude, environment, contact contours with different spring shape and a number of cycles. The results indicated that wear volume and maximum wear depth increased with slip amplitude in both air and water, but their trends tended to change according to the spring shapes and test environments. In air condition, the wear volume was controlled by wear debris behavior generated on worn surface. As a result, final wear volume and maximum wear depth decreased if a ratio of protruded wear volume to worn area $(D_p)$ would be saturated to specific value. This is because wear particle layer could accommodate large strain by accumulating and transforming wear particle layer. However, in water condition, metal-to metal contact was more dominant and wear volume was greatly affected by changed mechanical behavior between contact surfaces since wear debris should be generated after repeated plastic deformation and fracture. After wear test, worn surfaces were examined using optical microscope and SEM and details of wear mechanism were discussed using a ratio of wear volume to worn area $(D_e)$ at each test condition.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.431-437
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• 2003

KAERI has contrived 14 kinds of spacer grid shapes of its own since 1997 and applied for Korean and US patents. To date. KAERI has obtained US and Korean patents for 6 kinds of spacer grid shapes among them. Tn this study. performance test on two spacer grid shapes that are assumed to be the most effective candidates for the spacer grid of the next generation nuclear fuel in Korea was carried Qui through the mechanical/structural test and analysis. The test result has shown thai the performances of the candidates are better or not worse than that of the current spacer grid.