• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.355-362
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• 2012

The aim of this study was to develop a bundle position-wise linear model (BPLM) to predict Pressure Tube (PT) diametral creep employing the previously measured PT diameters and operating conditions. There are twelve bundles in a fuel channel, and for each bundle a linear model was developed by using the dependent variables, such as the fast neutron fluences and the bundle coolant temperatures. The training data set was selected using the subtractive clustering method. The data of 39 channels that consist of 80 percent of a total of 49 measured channels from Units 2, 3, and 4 of the Wolsung nuclear plant in Korea were used to develop the BPLM. The data from the remaining 10 channels were used to test the developed BPLM. The BPLM was optimized by the maximum likelihood estimation method. The developed BPLM to predict PT diametral creep was verified using the operating data gathered from Units 2, 3, and 4. Two error components for the BPLM, which are the epistemic error and the aleatory error, were generated. The diametral creep prediction and two error components will be used for the generation of the regional overpower trip setpoint at the corresponding effective full power days. The root mean square (RMS) errors were also generated and compared to those from the current prediction method. The RMS errors were found to be less than the previous errors.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.7
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• pp.2454-2465
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• 2023

Film boiling may lead to burnout of the heating element. Even though burnout does not occur, the heating element is subject to deformation because it is not sufficiently strong to withstand external loads. In particular, the ballooning and rupture of a tube under film boiling are important phenomena in the field of nuclear reactor safety. If the tube-type cladding of nuclear fuel ruptures owing to high internal pressure and thermal load, radioactive materials inside the cladding are released to the coolant. Therefore, predicting the ballooning and rupture is important. This study presents numerical simulations to predict the ballooning behavior and rupture time of a horizontal tube at high internal pressure under saturated film boiling. To do so, a multi-step coupled simulation of conjugated film boiling heat transfer and ballooning using creep model is adopted. The numerical methods and models are validated against experimental values. Two different nonuniform heat flux distributions and four different internal pressures are considered. The three-step simulation is enough to obtain a convergent result. However, the single-step simulation also successfully predicts the rupture time. This is because the film boiling heat transfer characteristics are slightly affected by the tube geometry related to creep ballooning.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.58-64
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• 2012

Power plant boiler is one of the most important utilities providing steam to turbine in thermal power plant. It is composed of thousands of boiler tubes for high efficient heat transfer. Boiler tube material is used in such high temperature and pressure as $540^{\circ}C$, $170kg/mm^2$. The boiler tube material is needed to resist corrosion damage, creep damage and fatigue damage. 2.25%Cr-1Mo steel is used for conventional boiler tubes. In these days steam temperature and pressure of the power plant became higher for high plant efficiency. So, the material property of boiler tube must be upgraded to meet the plant property. Several boiler tube material was developed to meet such condition. X20CrMoV12.1 steel is also developed in early 1980's and used for superheater and reheater tubes in supercritical boilers. The material has martensitic structure, which is difficult to evaluate the material degradation. Boiler tube material at severe condition was tested to evaluate long term and short term degradation and creep. Through long term and high temperature degradation test, lath structure was decreased and recrystallization has been proceeded by sub-crystal. And in this research the effect of temperature and stress on boiler tube characteristic,for example, deformation by creep was changed rapidly at relatively high temperature and stress because creep was affected easily by temperature and stress.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.17-22
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• 2009

Thermal stress and elastic creeping stress analysis was conducted by finite element method to simulate start-up process of a boiler header of 500MW standard fossil power plant. Start-up temperature and operating pressure history were simplified from the real field data and they were used for the thermal stress analysis. Two kinds of thermal stress analysis were considered. In the first case only temperature increase was considered and in the second case both of temperature and operating pressure histories were considered. In the first analysis peak stress was occurred during the temperature increase from the room temperature. Hence cracking or fracture may occur at the temperature far below the operating maximum temperature. In the results of the second analysis von Mises stress appeared to be higher after the second temperature increase. This is due to internal pressure increase not due to the thermal stress. When the stress components of radial(r), hoop($\theta$) and longitudinal(z) stress were investigated, compression hoop stress was occurred at inner surface of the stub tube when the temperature increased from room temperature to elevated temperature. Then it was changed to tension hoop stress and increased because of the operating pressure. It was expected that frequent start-up and shut-down operations could cause thermal fatigue damage and cracking at the stub tube hole in the header. Elastic-creeping analysis was also carried out to investigate the stress relaxation due to creep and stabilized stress after considerable elapsed time. The results could be used for assessing the creep damage and the residual life of the boiler header during the long-tenn service.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06d
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• pp.834-839
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• 2001

Calandria tube wrapping each pressure tube is one of the key structural components of CANDU reactor(Calandria) which is consisted of many pressure tubes containing nuclear fuel assemblies. As the Calandria tube(made of zirconium alloy) is sagging due to its thermal and irradiation creep during the plant operation, it possibly contacts with liquid injection nozzle crossing beneath the Calandria tube, which subsequently results in difficulties on the safe operation. It is therefore necessary to check the gap for the confirmation of no contacts between the two tubes, Calandria tube and liquid injection tube, with a proper measure during the life of plant. In this study, an ultrasonic measurement method was selected among several methods investigated. The ultrasonic device being developed for the measurement of the gap was introduced and its preliminary performance test results were presented here. The gap between LIN and CT at site was measured using by this ultrasonic device at site.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.179-186
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• 2009

This paper presents a thermal creep test under internal pressure and post-test characterization performed on high burnup (68 MWd/kgU) ZIRLO. This research has been done by the CSN, ENRESA, and ENUSA in order to investigate the behavior of advanced cladding materials in contemporary PWRs at higher burnup under dry cask storage conditions. Also, to investigate the hydride reorientation, the cool-down of the samples after the test has been done in a coordinated manner with the internal pressure. The creep results obtained are consistent with the expected behavior from reference CWSR material, Zr-4. During the test, the material retained significant ductility: one specimen leaked during the test at an engineering strain of the tube section of 17%; remarkably, the crack closed due to de-pressurization. Although significant hydride reorientation occurred during the cool-down under pressure, no specimen failed during the cool-down.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.667-668
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• 2005

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.971-972
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• 2005

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.479-490
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• 2005

The thermalhydraulic performance of a CANDU-6 reactor loaded with various CANFLEX fuel bundles is evaluated by the NUCIRC code, which is incorporated with recent models of pressure drop and critical heat flux (CHF) predictions based on high-pressure steam-water tests for the CANFLEX bundle as well as a 37-element bundle. The distributions of channel flow rate, channel exit quality, critical channel power (CCP), and critical power ratio (CPR) for the CANFLEX bundles (with natural or recycled uranium fuel) in the CANDU-6 reactor fuel channel are calculated by the code. The effects of axial and radial heat flux on CCP are evaluated by assuming that the recycled uranium fuel (CANFLEX-RU) has the same geometric data as the natural uranium fuel bundle (CANFLEX-NU), but a different power distribution due to different fuel composition and refueling scheme. In addition, the effects of pressure tube creep and bearing-pad height are examined by comparing various results of uncrept, and $3.3\%\;and\;5.1\%$ crept channels loaded with CANFLEX bundles with 1.4 mm or 1.7 mm high bearing-pads with those of the 37-element bundle. The distributions of the channel flow rate and CCP for the CANFLEX-NU or -RU bundle show a typical trend for a CANDU-6 reactor channel, and the CPRs are maintained above at least 1.444 (NU) or 1.455 (RU) in the uncrept channel. The enhanced CHF of the CANFLEX bundle (particularly with 1.7mm height bearing-pads) produces a higher thermal margin and considerably less sensitivity to CCP reduction due to the pressure tube creep than the 37-element bundle. The CCP enhancement due to the raised bearing-pads is estimated to be about $3\%\~5\%$ for the CANFLEX-NU and $2\%\~6\%$ for the CANFLEX-RU bundle, respectively.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.38 no.8
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• pp.831-836
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• 2014

In this study, high temperature integrity evaluation on a pressure vessel of the expansion tank operating at elevated temperature of $510^{\circ}C$ in the sodium test facility of the SEFLA(Sodium Thermal-hydraulic Experiment Loop for Finned-tube Sodium-to-Air heat exchanger) to be constructed at KAERI has been performed. Evaluations of creep-fatigue damage based on a full 3D finite element analyses were conducted for the expansion tank according to the recent elevated temperature design codes of ASME Section III Subsection NH and French RCC-MRx. It was shown that the expansion tank maintains its integrity under the intended creep-fatigue loads. Quantitative code comparisons were conducted for the pressure vessel of austenitic stainless steel 316L.