• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.7-13
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• 2012

A spacer grid which is one of the most important structural components in a pressurized water reactor fuel is an interconnected array of slotted grid straps, welded at the intersections to form an egg-crate structure. The spacer grid is required to not only protect fuel rods stably but also have sufficient lateral crush strength for the sake of enabling shut-down of the nuclear reactor during abnormal operating environments. Then, the lateral crush strength of the spacer grid is closely related with welding quality of the spacer grid. Previous research on the crush strength analysis of the spacer grid had been performed using only parent material properties. In this study, to investigate the effect on the crush strength of the spacer grid when used mechanical properties in weld zone instead of parent material properties, crush strength analysis considering mechanical properties in weld zone obtained from the instrumented indentation technique was performed and compared the results with the previous research.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2000.04a
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• pp.171-178
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• 2000

In order to evaluate the tensile behaviors of hoop direction for the nuclear fuel cladding tubes the shapes of specimen and jig fixtures for the ring test are decided with various conditions under the elastic-large plastic deformations. The axial displacement of the jig cylinders is converted to the circumferential direction elongations of specimen. The stress distributions on specimen are depended on the radii and locations of specimen and jig size and central angle. Therefore we calculated the stress distributions and decided the optimum shapes to get the uniform stress in the area of specimen gage length. Form the analysis the stress distributions in gate area are reviewed with the radii and location of specimen notch and the central angle of jig cylinder,. The optimum shapes of specimen and jig are proposed to the clad tube having 10.62 mm in diameter and 0.63mm in thickness for 16x16 PWR nuclear fuel assembly.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.149-156
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• 2016

The spent fuel stored in the pool is vulnerable to external impacts, since the severe reactor conditions degrade the structural integrity of the fuel. Therefore an accident during shipping and handling should be considered. In an extreme case, the fuel assembly drop can be happened accidentally during handling the nuclear fuel in the spent fuel pool. The rod failure during such drop accident can be evaluated by calculating the impact force acting on the fuel assembly at the bottom of the spent fuel pool. The impact force can be evaluated with the impact velocity at the bottom of the spent fuel pool. Since fuel rods occupies most of weight and volume of a nuclear fuel assembly, the information of the rods are important to estimate the hydraulic resistance force. In this study, the hydraulic force acting on the $3{\times}3$ short rod bundle model during the drop accident is calculated, and the result is verified by comparing the numerical simulations. The methodology suggested by this study is expected to be useful for evaluating the integrity of the spent fuel.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.363-374
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• 2005

A heterogeneous thorium-based Kyung Hee Thorium Fuel (KTF) assembly design was assessed for application in the APR-1400 to study the feasibility of using thorium fuel in a conventional pressurized water reactor (PWR). Thermal hydraulic safety was examined for the thorium-based APR-1400 core, focusing on the Departure from Nucleate Boiling Ratio (DNBR) and Large Break Loss of Coolant Accident (LBLOCA) analysis. To satisfy the minimum DNBR (MDNBR) safety limit condition, MDNBR>1.3, a new grid design was adopted, that enabled grids in the seed and blanket assemblies to have different loss coefficients to the coolant flow. The fuel radius of the blanket was enlarged to increase the mass flow rate in the seed channel. Under transient conditions, the MDNBR values for the Beginning of Cycle (BOC), Middle of Cycle (MOC), and End of Cycle (EOC) were 1.367, 1.465, and 1.554, respectively, despite the high power tilt across the seed and blanket. Anticipated transient for the DNBR analysis were simulated at conditions of $112\%$ over-power, $95\%$ flow rate, and $2^{\circ}C$ higher inlet temperature. The maximum peak cladding temperature (PCT) was 1,173K for the severe accident condition of the LBLOCA, while the limit condition was 1,477K. The proliferation resistance potential of the thorium-based core was found to be much higher than that of the conventional $UO_2$ fuel core, $25\%$ larger in Bare Critical Mass (BCM), $60\%$ larger in Spontaneous Neutron Source (SNS), and $155\%$ larger in Thermal Generation (TG) rate; however, the radio-toxicity of the spent fuel was higher than that of $UO_2$ fuel, making it more environmentally unfriendly due to its high burnup rate.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.16 no.2 s.107
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• pp.163-168
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• 2006

The PWR Nuclear Fuel assembly consists of more than 250 fuel rods that are supported by leaf springs in the cells of more than 10 Spacer Grids (SG) along the rod length. Since it is not easy to conduct mechanical tests on a full-scale model basis, the small-scaled rod bundle $(5\times5)$ which is called partial fuel assembly is generally used for various performance tests during the development stage. As one of the small-scaled tests, a flow test should be carried out in order to verify the performance of the spacer grid to obtain the Flow-Induced Vibration (FIV) characteristics of the scaled fuel assembly over the specified flow range. A vibration test should be also performed to obtain the modal parameters of the assembly prior to the flow test. In this study, we want to develop the estimation procedure of the damping ratio for the scaled test assembly. For the damping factor of the partial fuel assembly and the grid cage at the first vibration mode, as one of the vibration tests, a so-called pluck testing has been performed in air as a preliminary test prior to in-flow damping measurement test. Logarithmic decrement method is used for calculation of the damping ratio. Estimated damping ratio of the partial fuel assembly is about $0.7\%$ with reasonable error of $2\%$ for the previous results. Nonlinear behavior of the partial fuel assembly might be stem mainly from the rod-grid support configuration.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.343-352
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• 2014

Uncertainty and sensitivity analyses with respect to nuclear data are performed with depletion calculations for BWR and PWR fuel assemblies specified in the framework of the UAM-LWR Benchmark Phase II. For this, the GRS sampling based tool XSUSA is employed together with the TRITON depletion sequences from the SCALE 6.1 code system. Uncertainties for multiplication factors and nuclide inventories are determined, as well as the main contributors to these result uncertainties by calculating importance indicators. The corresponding neutron transport calculations are performed with the deterministic discrete-ordinates code NEWT. In addition, the Monte Carlo code KENO in multi-group mode is used to demonstrate a method with which the number of neutron histories per calculation run can be substantially reduced as compared to that in a calculation for the nominal case without uncertainties, while uncertainties and sensitivities are obtained with almost the same accuracy.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.7
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• pp.2714-2719
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• 2022

The present paper proposes some new computational methods and results in the framework of flow computation through congested domains seen as porous media, as it can be found in the core of a Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR). The flow is thus mostly governed by the distribution of pressure losses, both through the porous structures, such as fuel assemblies, and in the thin fluid layers between them. The purpose of the present paper is to consider the question of the interaction of a flow and a rod bundle from an analytical point of view gathering all the contributions through a set of equations as simple and representative as possible. It aims at demonstrating a sound understanding of the relevant phenomena governing the flow establishment in the geometry of interest instead of relying mainly on a posteriori observations obtained both experimentally and numerically. Comparison with two set of experimental results showed good agreement. The model proposed being analytical it appears easily implementable for studies needing an expression of fluid forces in a rod array as for fuel assembly bowing issue. It would be interesting to test the reliability of the model on other geometry with different P/R ratios.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.21-36
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• 2008

High bum-up fuel technology has been developed through a national R&D program, which covers key technology areas such as claddings, $UO_2$ pellets, spacer grids, performance code, and fuel assembly tests. New cladding alloys were developed through alloy designs, tube fabrication, out-of-pile test and in-reactor test. The new Zr-Nb tubes are found to be much better in their corrosion resistance and creep strength than the Zircaloy-4 tube, owing to an optimized composition and heat treatment of the new Zr-Nb alloys. A new fabrication technology for large grain $UO_2$ pellets was developed using various uranium oxide seeds and a micro-doping of Al. The uranium oxide seeds, which were added to $UO_2$ powder, were prepared by oxidizing and heat-treating scrap $UO_2$ pellets. A $UO_2$ pellet containing tungsten channels was fabricated for a thermal conductivity enhancement. For the fuel performance analysis, new high burnup models were developed and implemented in a code. This code was verified by an international database and our own database. The developed spacer grid has two features of contoured contact spring and hybrid mixing vanes. Mechanical and hydraulic tests showed that the spacer grid is superior in its rodsupporting, wear resistance and CHF performance. Finally, fuel assembly test technology was also developed. Facilities for mechanical and thermal hydraulic tests were constructed and are now in operation. Several achievements are to be utilized soon by the Korea Nuclear Fuel and thereby contribute to the economy and safety of PWR fuel in Korea

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.238-247
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• 2020

The Burnable Poison (BP) is very important for all Light Water Reactors in order to hold-down the initial excess reactivity and to control power peaking. The use of BP is even more essential as the excess reactivity increases significantly with a longer operation cycle. In this paper a feasibility study was conducted in order to investigate the benefits of a new combinational BP concept designed for 24-month cycle PWR core. The reference designs in this study are based on the two Korean fuel assemblies; 17 × 17 Westinghouse (WH) design and 16 × 16 Combustion Engineering (CE) design. A modification was done on these two designs to extend their cycle length from 18 months into 24 months. DeCART2D-MASTER code system was used to perform assembly and core calculations for both designs. A preliminary test was conducted in order to choose the best BP suitable for 24-month as a representative for single BP concept. The comparison between the results of two concepts (combinational BP concept and single BP concept) showed that the combinational BP concept can replace the single BP concept with better performance on holding down the initial excess reactivity without violating the design limitations.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.342-352
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• 1998

A nuclear design feasibility of soluble boron free(SBF core for the medium-sized(600MWe) PWR was investigated. The result conformed that soluble boron free operation could be performed by using current PWR proven technologies. Westinghouse advanced reactor, AP-600 was chosen as a design prototype. Design modification was applied for the assembly design with burnable poison and control rod absorber material. In order to control excess reactivity, large amount of gadolinia integral burnable poison rods were used and B4C was used as a control rod absorber material. For control of bottom shift axial power shape due to high temperature feedback in SBF core, axial zoning of burnable poison was applied to the fuel assemblies design. The combination of enrichment and rod number zoning for burnable poison could make an excess reactivity swing flat within around 1% and these also led effective control on axial power offset and peak pin power, The safety assessment of the designed core was peformed by the calculation of MTC, FTC and shutdown margin. MTC in designed SBF core was greater around 6 times than one of Ulchin unit 3&4. Utilization of enriched BIO(up to 50w1o) in B4C shutdown control rods provided enough shutdown margin as well as subcriticality at cold refueling condition.