• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.80-99
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• 2023

This paper presents the results of investigating the change in welding residual stresses of the core shroud, which is one of subcomponents in reactor vessel internals, performing finite element analysis. First, the welding residual stresses of the core shroud were calculated by applying the heat conduction based lumped pass technique and finite element elastic-plastic stress analysis. Second, the temperature distribution of the core shroud during the normal operation was calculated by performing finite element temperature analysis considering gamma heating. Third, through the finite element viscoelastic-plastic stress analysis using the calculated temperature distribution and setting the calculated residual stresses as the initial stress state, the variation of the welding residual stresses was derived according to repeating the normal operation. In the viscoelastic-plastic stress analysis, the effects of neutron irradiation on mechanical properties during the cyclic normal operations were considered by using the previously developed user subroutines for the irradiation agings such as irradiation hardening/embrittlement, irradiation-induced creep, and void swelling. Finally, the effect of neutron irradiation on the welding residual stresses was analysed for each irradiation aging. As a result, it is found that as the normal operation is repeated, the welding residual stresses decrease and show insignificant magnitudes after the 10^th refueling cycle. In addition, the irradiation-induced creep/void swelling has significant mitigation effect on the residual stresses whereas the irradiation hardening/embrittlement has no effect on those.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.445-452
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• 1994

Three-axial deformation behavior of the Zircaloy cladding tube under the irradiation condition of the fuel in pressurized water reactor can be analyzed by the anisotropy in the creep and the irra- diation growth, which depends on the texture parameter. A methodology to evaluate the impact of the anisotropic creep and irradiation growth on the strain in each axial direction of the cladding tube has been proposed. Based on the measured strains after irradiation and predicted ones with the help of a fuel performance analysis code, it is found that a tangential strain of the cladding tube is caused mainly by the creep, whereas a axial strain of the cladding is caused mainly by the irradiation growth but with a considerable contribution of the creep at low irradiation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.8
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• pp.2616-2628
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• 2021

The results of effective irradiation swelling in a wide range of burnup levels are numerically obtained for an inert matrix fuel, which are verified with DART model. The fission gas swelling of fuel particles is calculated with a mechanistic model, which depends on the external hydrostatic pressure. Additionally, irradiation and thermal creep effects are included in the inert matrix. The effects of matrix creep strains, external hydrostatic pressure and temperature on the effective irradiation swelling are investigated. The research results indicate that (1) the above effects are coupled with each other; (2) the matrix creep effects at high temperatures should be involved; and (3) ranged from 0 to 300 MPa, a remarkable dependence of external hydrostatic pressure can be found. Furthermore, an explicit multi-variable mathematic model is established for the effective irradiation swelling, as a function of particle volume fraction, temperature, external hydrostatic pressure and fuel particle fission density, which can well reproduce the finite element results. The mathematic model for the current volume fraction of fuel particles can help establish other effective performance models.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.1031-1043
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• 2017

A structural model for stress distributions of coated Zircaloy subjected to realistic incore pressure difference, thermal expansion, irradiation-induced axial growth, and creep has been developed in this study. In normal operation, the structural integrity of coating layers is anticipated to be significantly challenged with increasing burnup. Strain mismatch between the zircaloy and the coated layer, due to their different irradiation-induced axial growth, and creep deformation are found to be the most dominant causes of stress. This study suggests that the compatibility of the high temperature irradiation-induced strains (axial growth and creep) between zircaloy and the coating layer and the capability to undergo plastic strain should be taken as key metrics, along with the traditional focus on chemical protectiveness.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
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• v.1998 no.11
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• pp.90-91
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• 1998

The influence of gamma-irradiation sterilization on the creep and wear performance of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) was investigated by conducting the dynamic compressive creep tests and pin-on-disc sliding wear tests. The changes of microstructure property, relative crystallinity, oxidation index, percent crosslinking, were also measured and the relationship between these and creep and wear results was discussed.

• Macromolecular Research
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.112-118
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• 2004

With the goal of enhancing the creep resistance of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE), we performed gamma irradiation and post-irradiation annealing at a low temperature, and investigated the crystalline structures and mechanical properties of the samples. Electron spin resonance spectra reveal that most of the residual radicals are stabilized by annealing at 100$^{\circ}C$ for 72 h under vacuum. Both the melting temperature and crystallinity increase after increasing the dose and by post-irradiation annealing. When irradiated with the same dose, the quenched sample having a higher amorphous fraction exhibits a lower swell ratio than does the slow-cooled sample. The measured tensile properties correlate well to the crystalline structure of the irradiated and annealed samples. For enhancing creep resistance, high crystallinity appears to be more critical than a high degree of crosslinking.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.802-810
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• 2020

Three-dimensional finite element simulations are implemented for the in-pile thermo-mechanical behavior in U-Mo/Al monolithic fuel plates with different thermal creep rates of cladding involved. The numerical results indicate that the thickness increment of fuel foil rises with the thermal creep coefficient of cladding. The maximum Mises stress of cladding is reduced by ~85% from 344 MPa on the 98.0^th day when the creep coefficient of cladding increases from 0.01 to 10.0, due to its equivalent thermal creep strain enlarged by 3.5 times. When the thermal creep coefficient of Aluminum cladding increases from 0 to 1.0, the maximum mesoscale stress of fuel foil varies slightly. At the same time, the peak mesoscale normal stress of fuel foil can reach 51 MPa on the 98.0^th day for the thermal creep coefficient of 10, which increases by 60.3% of that with the thermal creep un-occurred in the cladding. The maximum through-thickness creep strain components of fuel foil differ slightly for different thermal creep coefficients of cladding. The dangerous region of fuel foil becomes much closer to the heavily irradiated side when the creep coefficient of cladding becomes 10.0. The creep performance of Aluminum cladding should be optimized for the integrity of monolithic fuel plates.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.39-48
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• 2024

Research reactors are operated under ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure, which is much less severe conditions compared to those in typical nuclear power plants. Due to the high temperature, heat resistant materials such as austenite stainless steel should be used for the reactors in typical nuclear power plants. Whereas, as the effect of temperature is low for research reactors, materials with high resistance to neutron irradiation, such as zircaloy and beryllium, are used. Therefore, these conditions should be considered when performing integrity assessment for research reactors. In this study, a computational technique through finite element (FE) analysis was developed considering the operating conditions and materials of research reactor when conducting integrity assessment. Neutron irradiation analysis techniques using thermal expansion analysis were proposed to consider neutron irradiation growth and swelling in zirconium alloys and beryllium. A user subroutine program that can calculate the strain rate induced by neutron irradiation creep was developed for use in the commercial analysis program Abaqus. To validate the proposed technique and the user subroutine, FE analysis results were compared with hand-calculation results, and showed good agreement. Consequently, developed technique and user subroutine are suitable for evaluating structural integrity of research reactors.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.58-63
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• 2004

Reduced Activation Ferritic/Martensitic Steels (RAFs) are leading candidntes for structural materials of a D-T fusion reactor. One of the RAFs, JLF-l (9Cr-2W-V, Ta) has been developed and has shown to have good resistance against high-fluency neutrino irradiation and good phase stability. Recently, in order to clarify the strengthening mechanisms at high temperatures, a new scheme to improve high temperature mechanical properties is desired. Therefore, the test technique development of high temperature creep behaviors for this material is very important. In this paper, the creep properties and creep life prediction, using the Larson-Miler parameter method for JLF-l to be used for fusion reactor materials or other high temperature components, are presented at the elevated temperatures of 50$0^{\circ}C$, 55$0^{\circ}C$, $600^{\circ}C$, $650^{\circ}C$ and 704$^{\circ}C$. It was confirmed, experimentally and quantitatively, that a creep life predictive equation, at such various high temperatures, is well derived mr the LMP method.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.11
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• pp.3723-3740
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• 2021

The harsh conditions in the reactor affect the thermal and mechanical performance of the fuel plate heavily. Some in-pile behaviors, like fission-induced swelling, can cause a large deformation of fuel plate at very high burnup, which may even disturb the flow of coolant. In this research, the emphasis is put on the thermal expansion, fission-induced swelling, interaction layer (IL) growth, creep of the fuel meat, and plasticity of the cladding for the U₃Si₂/Al dispersion fuel plate. A detailed model of the fuel meat swelling is developed. Taking these in-pile behaviors into consideration, the three-dimensional large deformation incremental constitutive relations and stress update algorithms have been developed to study its thermal-mechanical performance under normal conditions using Abaqus. Results have shown that IL can effectively decrease the thermal conductivity of fuel meat. The high Mises stress region mainly locates at the interface between fuel meat and cladding, especially around the side edge of the interface. With irradiation time increasing, the stress in the fuel plate gets larger resulting from the growth of fuel meat swelling but then decreases under the effect of creep deformation. For the cladding, plasticity deformation does not occur within the irradiation time.