• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제49권8호
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• pp.1629-1635
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• 2017

Reliable prediction of nuclear fuel rod behavior of nuclear power reactors constitutes a basic demand for steady-state calculations, design purposes, and fuel performance assessment. Perfect design of fuel rods as the first barrier against fission product release is very important. Simulation of fuel rod performance with a code or software is one of the fuel rod design steps. In this study, a software program called MARCODE is developed in MATLAB environment that can analyze the temperature distribution, gap conductance value, and fuel and clad displacement in both solid and annular fuel rods. With a comparison of the maximum fuel temperature, fuel average temperature, fuel surface temperature, and gap conductance in solid and annular fuel, the effects of a central hole on the fuel temperature distribution are investigated.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제51권6호
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• pp.1596-1609
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• 2019

The fuel rod performance has great importance for the safety and economy of an operating reactor. The fuel rod performance analysis code, which considers the thermal-mechanical response and irradiation effects of fuel rod, is usually developed in order to predict fuel rod performance accurately. The FRIPAC (${\underline{F}}uel$ ${\underline{R}}od$ ${\underline{I}}ntegral$ ${\underline{P}}erformance$ ${\underline{A}}nalysis$ ${\underline{C}}ode$) is such a fuel rod performance analysis code that has been developed recently by China Nuclear Power Technology Research Institute Co. Ltd. The code aims at the computational simulation of the Pressurized Water Reactor fuel rod behavior for both steady-state and power ramp condition. A brief overview of FRIPAC is presented including the computational framework and the main behavioral models. Validation of the code is also presented and it focuses on the fuel rod behavior including fuel center temperature, fission gas release, rod internal pressure/internal void volume, cladding outer diameter and cladding corrosion thickness. The validation is based on experimental data from several international projects. The validation results indicate that FRIPAC is an accurate and reliable fuel rod performance analysis code because of the satisfactory comparison results between the experimental measurements and the code predictions.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권11호
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• pp.4049-4061
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• 2022

TRISO-coated particle fuel is widely used in high temperature gas cooled reactors and other advanced reactors. The performance of coated fuel particle is one of the fundamental bases of reactor safety. The failure probability of coated fuel particle should be evaluated and determined through suitable fuel performance models and methods during normal and accident condition. In order to better facilitate the design of coated particle fuel, a new TRISO fuel performance code named FRAT (Fission product Release Analysis Tool) was developed. FRAT is designed to calculate internal gas pressure, mechanical stress and failure probability of a coated fuel particle. In this paper, FRAT was introduced and benchmarked against IAEA CRP-6 benchmark cases for coated particle failure analysis. FRAT's results agree well with benchmark values, showing the correctness and satisfactory applicability. This work helps to provide a foundation for the credible application of FRAT.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제56권11호
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• pp.4843-4850
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• 2024

Realistic simulation of nuclear fuel performance requires not only validated models capable of describing the thermomechanical phenomena that take place within the fuel under irradiation conditions, but a detailed description of the thermal hydraulics of the channel surrounding the fuel rods, which provides the boundary conditions of the system. In this work, the main results and outlooks of coupling the thermal hydraulics code SubChanFlow with the fuel performance code DIONISIO are presented. To achieve this, an internal coupling was implemented, wherein DIONISIO is used as a master code controlling SubChanFlow as a thermal hydraulics subroutine replacing the simplified version already embedded in DIONISIO. Several tests were conducted to ensure the performance and quality of the coupling under normal operation conditions as a first approach. In addition, it was observed that the coupling demonstrated a significant improvement in the description of the cladding temperature and related variables, such as oxide thickness and hydrogen uptake, when compared with experimental data.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제50권5호
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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.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제41권4호
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• pp.493-520
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• 2009

During the last four decades, 16 Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) and 4 Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR) have been constructed and operated in Korea, and nuclear fuel technology has been developed to a self-reliant state. At first, the PWR fuel design and manufacturing technology was acquired through international cooperation with a foreign partner. Then, the PWR fuel R&D by Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) has improved fuel technology to a self-reliant state in terms of fuel elements, which includes a new cladding material, a large-grained $UO_2$ pellet, a high performance spacer grid, a fuel rod performance code, and fuel assembly test facility. The MOX fuel performance analysis code was developed and validated using the in-reactor test data. MOX fuel test rods were fabricated and their irradiation test was completed by an international program. At the same time, the PWR fuel development by Korea Nuclear Fuel (KNF) has produced new fuel assemblies such as PLUS7 and ACE7. During this process, the design and test technology of fuel assemblies was developed to a self-reliant state. The PHWR fuel manufacturing technology was developed and manufacturing facility was set up by KAERI, independently from the foreign technology. Then, the advanced PHWR fuel, CANFLEX(CANDU Flexible Fuelling), was developed, and an irradiation test was completed in a PHWR. The development of the CANFLEX fuel included a new design of fuel rods and bundles.. The nuclear fuel technology in Korea has been steadily developed in many national R&D programs, and this advanced fuel technology is expected to contribute to a worldwide nuclear renaissance that can create solutions to global warming.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권11호
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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.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제56권1호
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• pp.167-179
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• 2024

This study explores the feasibility of employing (U, Th)-based accident tolerant fuels (ATFs), specifically (_0.8UO₂, _0.2ThO₂), (_0.8UN, _0.2ThN), and (_0.8UC, _0.2ThC). The investigation assesses the overall performance of these proposed fuel materials in comparison to the conventional UO₂, focusing on deep neutronic and thermal-hydraulic (Th) analyses. Neutronic analysis utilized the MCNPX code, while COMSOL Multiphysics was employed for thermal-hydraulic analysis. The primary objective of this research is to overcome the limitations associated with traditional UO₂ fuel by exploring alternative fuel materials that offer advantages in terms of abundance and potential improvements in performance and safety. Given the limited abundance of UO₂, long-term sustainable nuclear energy production faces challenges. From a neutronic standpoint, the U-Th based fuels demonstrated remarkable fuel cycle lengths, except (_0.8UN, _0.2ThN), which exhibited the minimum fuel cycle length and, consequently, the lowest fuel burn-up. Regarding thermal-hydraulic performance, (_0.8UN, _0.2ThN) exhibited outstanding performance with significant margins against fuel melting compared to the other materials. Overall, when considering the integrated performance, the most favourable results were obtained with the use of the (_0.8UC, _0.2ThC) fuel configurations. This study contributes valuable insights into the potential benefits of (U, Th)-based ATFs as a promising avenue for enhanced nuclear fuel performance.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제37권4호
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• pp.317-326
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• 2005

The burning-out of excess plutonium from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel and from the dismantlement of nuclear weapons is recently emphasized due to the difficulties in securing the final repository for the spent fuel and the necessity to consume the ex-weapons plutonium. An irradiation test in the Halden reactor was launched by the OECD Halden Reactor Project (HRP) to investigate the in-pile behavior of plutonium-embedded fuel as a form of mixed oxide (MOX) and of inert matrix fuel (IMF). The first cycle of irradiation was successfully accomplished with good integrity of test fuel rods and without any undesirable fault of instrumentations. The test results revealed that the MOX fuel is more stable under irradiation environments than IMF. In addition, MOX fuel shows lower thermal resistance due to its better thermal conductivity than IMF. The on-line measured in-pile performance data of attrition milled MOX fuel are used in the analysis of the in-pile performance of the fuel with the fuel performance code, COSMOS. The COSMOS code has been developed for the analysis of MOX fuel as well as $UO_2$ fuel up to high burnup and showed good capability to analyze the in-reactor behavior of MOX fuel even with different instrumentation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제43권6호
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• pp.489-498
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• 2011

UK National Nuclear Laboratory's (NNL's) version of the ENIGMA fuel performance code is described, including details of the development history, the system modelled, the key assumptions, the thermo-mechanical solution scheme, and the various incorporated models. The recent development of ENIGMA in the areas of whole core analysis and dry storage applications is then discussed. With respect to the former, the NEXUS code has been developed by NNL to automate whole core fuel performance modelling for an LWR core, using ENIGMA as the underlying fuel performance engine. NEXUS runs on NNL's GEMSTONE high performance computing cluster and utilises 3-D core power distribution data obtained from the output of Studsvik Scandpower's SIMULATE code. With respect to the latter, ENIGMA has been developed such that it can model the thermo-mechanical behaviour of a given LWR fuel rod during irradiation, pond cooling, drying, and dry storage - this involved: (a) incorporating an out-of-pile clad creep model for irradiated Zircaloy-4; (b) including the ability to simulate annealing out of the clad irradiation damage; (c) writing of additional post-irradiation output; (d) several other minor modifications to allow modelling of post-irradiation conditions.