• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.738-744
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• 2018

Fuel failure due to debris is a major cause of failure in pressurized water reactors. Fuel vendors have developed various filtering devices to reduce debris-induced failure and have evaluated filtering performance with their own test facilities and methods. Because of the different test facilities and methods, it is difficult to compare filtering performances objectively. This study presents an improved filtering test and an efficiency calculation method to fairly compare fuel-filtering efficiency regardless of the vendor's filtering features. To enhance the reliability of our evaluation, we established requirements for the test method and had a facility constructed according to the requirements. This article describes the debris specimens, the amount of debris, and the replicates for the proposed test method. A calculation method of comprehensive debris-filtering efficiency using a weighted mean is proposed. The test method was verified by repeated tests, and the tests were carried out using the PLUS7 and 17ACE7 test fuels to calculate the comprehensive debris-filtering efficiencies. The evaluation results revealed that the filtering performance of PLUS7 is better than that of 17ACE7. The proposed method can be used on any kind of debris-filtering devices and is appropriate for use as a standard.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.149-156
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• 2017

Nuclear fuel requires high reliability and safety and therefore contains debris filtering devices to prevent failure-inducing debris from entering it. The debris filtering performance of nuclear fuel is one of the most important factors for fuel integrity. Therefore, the performance must be evaluated and the measurement must be reasonable. In this study, a calculation method of the comprehensive filtering efficiency using the weighted mean was proposed to establish a standard filtering efficiency index. To confirm the suitability of the proposed method, representative debris specimens were selected and the filtering efficiency with the weighted mean was compared with the efficiency of the arithmetic mean. The weighting factor of the weighted mean was introduced to produce a fair evaluation. In addition, the analysis of the debris filtering mechanism was performed according to the size of debris specimens, and the main dimensions of the filtering feature for commercial nuclear fuel.