• Corrosion Science and Technology
• /
• v.18 no.5
• /
• pp.175-181
• /
• 2019

A failed spent fuel rod with 53,000 MWd/tU from a nuclear power plant was characterized, and the fission products and oxygen layer in the pellet-clad mechanical interaction region were observed using an EPMA (Electron Probe Micro-Analyzer). A sound fuel rod burned under similar conditions was used to compare and analyze, the results of the failed fuel rod. In the failed fuel rod, the oxide layer represented $10{\mu}m$ of the boundary of the cladding, and $35{\mu}m$ of the region outside the cladding. By comparison, in the sound fuel rod, the oxide layer was $8{\mu}m$, observed in the cladding boundary region. The cladding inner surface corrosion and the resulting fuel-cladding bonding were investigated using an EPMA. Zirconium existed in the bonding layer of the (U, Zr)O compound beyond the pellet cladding interaction gap of $20{\mu}m$, and composition of UZr2O3 was observed in the failed fuel rod. This paper presents the results of the EPMA examination of a spent fuel specimen, and a technique to analyze fission products in the pellet-clad mechanical interaction region.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.31-39
• /
• 2013

Nuclear fuel can be damaged under unexpected circumstances in a nuclear reactor. Fuel rod failure can be occurred due to debris fretting or excessive hydriding or PCI (Pellet-to-clad Interaction) etc. It is important to identify the causes of such failed fuel rods for the safe operation of nuclear power plants. If a fuel rod failure occurs during the operation of a nuclear power plant, the coolant water is contaminated by leaked fission products, and in some case the power level of the plant may be lowered or the operation stopped. In addition, all spent fuels must be transferred to a dry storage. But failed fuel can not be transferred to a dry storage. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop a system which is capable of inspecting whether the spent fuel in the storage pool is failed or not. The sipping technology is to analyze the leakage of fission products in state of gas and liquid. The failed fuel inspection system with gamma analyzer has successfully demonstrated that the system is enough to find the failed fuel at Wolsong plant.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.46 no.6
• /
• pp.875-882
• /
• 2014

In terms of safety and the efficient management of spent fuel storage, detecting failed fuel is one of the most important tasks in a CANada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) reactor operation. It has been successfully demonstrated that in a CANDU reactor, on-power failed fuel detection and location systems, along with alarm area gamma monitors, can detect and locate defective and suspect fuel bundles before discharging them from the reactor to the spent fuel storage bay. In the reception bay, however, only visual inspection has been used to identify suspect bundles. Gaseous fission product and delayed neutron monitoring systems cannot precisely distinguish failed fuel elements from each fuel bundle. This study reports the use of a sipping system in a CANDU reactor for the integrity assessment of spent fuel bundles. The integrity assessment of spent fuel bundles using this sipping system has shown promise as a nondestructive test for detecting a defective fuel bundle in a CANDU reactor.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.55 no.10
• /
• pp.3648-3658
• /
• 2023

The early localization of a fuel subassembly with a failed (wet rupture) fuel pin is very important in reactors to limit the associated radiological and operational consequences. This requires a fast and reliable system for failure detection and their localization in the core. In the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor, the system specially designed for this purpose is Failed Fuel Location Modules (FFLM) housed in the control plug region. It identifies a failed sub-assembly by detecting the presence of delayed neutrons in the sodium from a failed sub-assembly. During the commissioning phase of PFBR, it is mandatory to demonstrate the FFLM effectiveness. The paper highlights the engineering and physics design aspects of FFLM and the integrated simulation towards its function demonstration with a source assembly containing a perforated metallic fuel pin. This test pin mimics a MOX pin of 1 cm² of geometrical defect area. At 10% power and 20% sodium flow rate, the counts rate in the BCCs of FFLM system range from 75 cps to 145 cps depending upon the position of DN source assembly. The model developed for the counts simulation is applicable to both metal and MOX pins with proper values of k-factor and escape coefficient.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
• /
• 1997.05a
• /
• pp.484-488
• /
• 1997

Fission product release (FPR) assessment for 100% reactor outlet header (ROH) break in CANDU reactor loaded with CANFLEX-NU fuel bundles has been performed. The predicted results are compared with those for the reactor loaded with standard 37-element bundles. The fuel failure thresholds for the CANFLEX and standard bundle elements are very similar. All the sheaths at the corresponding fuel failure thresholds for the CANFLEX and standard bundles fail due to the significant cracks in the surface oxide, except those for the CANFLEX inner element at burnups of 220 to 240 MW.h/kg(U), which fail due to the excessive diametral strain. The fuel failure analysis predicts that the number of failed fuel elements for the CANFLEX bundle case is none, while that for the standard bundle case is 1827. The total (gap plus bound) I-131 releases for the CANFLEX and standard bundles are none and 5889 TBq, respectively The significant reduction of the number of failed fuel elements and FPR for the CABFKEX fuel bundle is attributed to the lower linear power of the CANFLEX fuel bundle compared with the standard fuel bundle.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
• /
• v.4 no.5
• /
• pp.211-216
• /
• 2005

Failure analysis of the latch ram ball and the C-ram ball with the trade name AFBMA Gr. 50 Colmonoy No. 6, has been performed to identify the root cause of the failure. The study required the extraction of the both failed and normal balls from the nuclear fuel exchanger. Microstructures of both balls were examined after polishing and etching. Breaking tests of both the ball revealed similarity in cleavage surfaces. Fracture surfaces of both failed ball and normal ball after breaking test were examined with SEM and EDX. Microstructure of the ball revealed an austenite phase with coarse Cr rich precipitate. Indented marks observed on the surface of the failed ball are believed to be produced by overloading. In the light of the afore mentioned observations and studies, the failure mechanism of the ball in nuclear fuel exchanger seem to be caused by impact or mechanical overloading on ball.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
• /
• 2018.11a
• /
• pp.193-194
• /
• 2018

• Nuclear industry
• /
• v.4 no.2 s.18
• /
• pp.28-39
• /
• 1984

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.13 no.2
• /
• pp.63-72
• /
• 1981

The change in the design-basis refueling strategy caused by the unexpected nuclear fuel failures may result in discharging intact fuel assemblies which were irradiated in the positions symmetric to the failed ones in addition to the failed ones in order to maintain the symmetric power shape in the reactor core. In this work an attempt is made to reuse the intact fuel assemblies which were discharged before reaching the design turnup in the above-described situation so as to improve the fuel utilization. The TDCORE code is used to estimate the flux and power distribution, and the RELOAD-II code for searching the optimal loading pattern with the minimum assembly radial power peaking factor. For the case of the Ko-ri unit 1, its third cycle turnup could be extended to 11,648 MWD/MTU by reusing the four low-burned fuel assemblies removed at the end of the first cycle, and then the loading pattern is searched to the equilibrium cycle.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.56 no.3
• /
• pp.846-854
• /
• 2024

FEMAXI-ATF is being developed for fuel performance modeling of SiC cladded UO2 fuel with focuses on modeling pellet-cladding mechanical interactions (PCMI). The code considers probability distributions of mechanical strengths of monolithic SiC (mSiC) and SiC fiber reinforced SiC matrix composite (SiC/SiC), while it models pseudo-ductility of SiC/SiC and propagation of cladding failures across the wall thickness direction in deterministic manner without explicitly modeling cracks based on finite element method in one-dimensional geometry. Some hypothetical BWR power ramp conditions were used to test sensitivities of different model parameters on the analyzed PCMI behavior. The results showed that propagation of the cladding failure could be modeled by appropriately reducing modulus of elasticities of the failed wall element, so that the mechanical load of the failed element could be re-distributed to other intact elements. The probability threshold for determination of the wall element failure did not have large influence on the predicted power at failure when the threshold was varied between 25 % and 75 %. The current study is still limited with respect to mechanistic modeling of SiC failure as it only models the propagation of the cladding wall element failure across the homogeneous continuum wall without considering generations and propagations of cracks.