• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1996.05b
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• pp.379-384
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• 1996

Thermal-hydraulic performance has been analyzed for an advanced reactor core loaded with hexagonal fuel assemblies. Currently available CHF prediction models and data base for triangular lattice bundles have been thoroughly reviewed, and as a result the KfK-3 CHF correlation with limit CHFR of 1.235 has been determined to be most appropriate. The pressure drop model in COBRA-IV-I code has been modified for the analysis of triangular lattice rod bundles. In view of maximizing the thermal margin, the geometry of a hexagonal fuel assembly, such as rod diameter and rod pitch, has been optimized with a fixed fuel assembly cross sectional area The optimum value of the moderator-to-fuel volume ratio is estimated to lie between 0.65 to 1 with 9.5 mm rod diameter. The thermal margin of these hexagonal fuel assemblies in the AP600 core has been evaluated and compared with that of square lattice fuel assemblies such as VANTAGE-5H and KOFA. The analysis result shows that the performances of hexagonal fuel assemblies are more favorable than the square fuel assemblies in the aspect of steady-state overpower margin.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Systems Engineering
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.33-39
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• 2017

This paper describes the system engineering approach for the heat transfer analysis of plus7 fuel rod for APR1400 using, a commercial software, ANSYS. The fuel rod is composed of fuel pellets, fill gas, end caps, plenum spring and cladding. The heat is transferred from the pellet outward by conduction through the pellet, fill gas and cladding and further by convection from the cladding surface to the coolant in the flow channel. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the temperature and heat flux change from the fuel centerline to the cladding surface when having maximum fuel centerline temperature at 100% power. This phenomenon is modelled using the ANSYS FEM code and analyzed for steady state temperature distribution across the fuel pellet and clad and the results were compared to the standard values given in APR1400 SSAR. Specifically the applicability of commercial software in the evaluation of nuclear fuel temperature distribution has been accounted. It is note that special codes have been used for fuel rod mechanical analysis which calculates interrelated effects of temperature, pressure, cladding elastic and plastic behavior, fission gas release, and fuel densification and swelling under the time-varying irradiation conditions. To satisfactorily meet this objective we apply system engineering methodologies to formulate the process and allow for verification and validation of the results acquired. The close proximity of the results obtained validated the accuracy of the FEM analysis of the 2D axisymmetric model and 3D model. This result demonstrated the validity of commercial software instead of proprietary in-house code that is more costly to develop and maintain.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1996.05c
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• pp.21-26
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• 1996

Recently several PWR Nuclear Plant experienced fuel rod fretting wear failures due to Flow Induced Vibration. When such multi-span supported fuel assembly has vibration excitation, it is important to know how fretting wears are progress and when the fuel rods are start to failure. In this study, we estimate the amount of wear depth using Archard theory when the fuel rod starts to relative motion against spacer grid dimples.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.424-429
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• 1993

Numeric characters are printed at the end part of nuclear fuel rod containing nuclear pellets. Fuel rods are discriminated and managed systematically by these characters in the process of producing fuel assembly. The characters are also used to examine manufacturing process of fuel rods in the survey of burnup efficiency as well as in inspection of irradiated fuel rod. Therefore automatic character recognition is one of the most important technologies in automatic manufacture of fuel assembly. In this study, character recognition system is developed. In the developed system, mesh feature extracted from each character written in the fuel rod has been compared with reference feature value stored in database, and the character is thus identified. In the result of experiment, 95.83 percent recognition rate is achievable.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.359-374
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• 2024

A high-fidelity numerical analysis methodology was proposed for evaluating the fuel rod cladding integrity of a Prototype Gen IV Sodium Fast Reactor (PGSFR) during normal operation and Design basis events (DBEs). The MARS-LMR code, system transient safety analysis code, was applied to analyze the DBEs. The results of the MARS-LMR code were used as boundary condition for a 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. The peak temperatures considering HCFs satisfied the cladding temperature limit. The temperature and pressure distributions were calculated by ANSYS CFX code, and applied to structural analysis. Structural analysis was performed using ANSYS Mechanical code. The seismic reactivity insertion SSE accident among DBEs had the highest peak cladding temperature and the maximum stress, as the value of 87 MPa. The fuel cladding had over 40 % safety margin, and the strain was below the strain limit. Deformation behavior was elucidated for providing relative coordinate data on each active fuel rod center. Bending deformation resulted in a flower shape, and bowing bundle did not interact with the duct of fuel assemblies. Fuel rod maximum expansion was generated with highest stress. Therefore, it was concluded that the fuel rod cladding of the PGSFR has sufficient structural safety margin during DBEs.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.12
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• pp.2880-2886
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• 2020

A small leak occurring on the surface of a fuel rod due to damage exposes UO₂ to a steam atmosphere. During this time, fission gas trapped inside the fuel rod leaks out, and the gas leakage can be increased due to UO₂ oxidation. Numerous studies have focused on the steam oxidation and its thermodynamic calculation in UO₂. However, the thermodynamic calculation of the UO₂ oxidation in a pressurized water reactor (PWR) environment has not been studied extensively. Moreover, the kinetics of the oxidation of UO₂ pellet also has not been investigated. Therefore, in this study, the thermodynamics of UO₂ oxidation under steam injection due to a damaged fuel rod in a PWR environment is studied. In addition, the diminishing radius of the UO₂ pellet with time in the PWR environment was calculated through an experiment simulating the initial time of steam injection at the puncture.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.424-431
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• 2003

The spacer grid is one of the main structural components in the fuel assembly, which supports the fuel rods and maintains coolable geometry from an external load. A vibration test and a finite element analysis using ABAQUS on a dummy fuel rod continuously supported by Optimized H type(OHT) and New Doublet (ND) spacer grids arc performed to obtain the vibration characteristics such as natural frequencies and mode shapes an(1 to verify a finite element model. The results from the test and the finite element analysis are compared by modal assurance criteria (MAC) values. It is resulted that MACs for the first, the third and the fifth mode shapes are relatively good as compared with those of the second an(1 fourth ones. The natural frequency differences between two methods as well as the mode comparison results for the rod with OHT spacer grid are better than those with ND spacer grid. It is judged that the FE model for the ND spacer grid spring should be modified to consider the long contact length which actually happen when the spring supports the rod.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.1055-1058
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• 2005

In the ACPF(Advanced spent nuclear fuel Conditioning Process Facility), the spent fuel pellets which are highly radioactive materials are separated with its clad and are fed into the next conditioning process. For this, at the other facility called PIEF(Post Irradiation Examination Facility) a spent fuel rod, 3.5 m long, is cut by 25 cm long which is suitable length fur the decladding process. These rod-cuts are packed into the capsule and are moved to the ACPF. Once the capsule is unloaded in the ACPF, the rod-cut is taken out one-by-one from the capsule and installed on the decladding device. In these processes, the crushed spent fuel pellet can be scattered inside the facilities and thus it contaminate the hot cell. In this paper, we developed the specially designed capsule which prevents the pellets scattering and remarkably reduces the leading and unloading time of the rod-cuts.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.36 no.12
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• pp.1653-1661
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• 2012

In this study, the pressure drop changes and structural characteristics of a SMART rod bundle under the effect of a coolant were investigated. The turbulence model of the BSL Reynolds stress model was used to model the coolant flow, and a fluid solid interaction simulation was conducted. First, fuel rod vibration analysis was performed to confirm the natural frequency of the fuel rod, which was supported by spacer grid assemblies, and this was compared with experimental results. From the experimental results, the natural frequency was found to be 48 Hz, and the error compared with the simulation results was 2%. The pressure drop at the rod bundle was calculated and compared with the experimental data; it showed an error of 8%, demonstrating the simulation accuracy. In the flow analysis, the flow velocity and secondary flow at different domains were calculated, and vortex generation was also observed. Finally, through the fluid solid interaction analysis, the fuel rod displacements caused by flow-induced vibrations were calculated. Then, calculated displacement PSD at maximum displacement happed point.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.17-26
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• 1996

The in-reactor fuel rod support conditions against the fretting wear-induced damage can be evaluated by residual spacer grid spring deflection or rod-to-grid gap. In order to evaluate the impact of fuel design parameters on the fretting wear-induced damage, a simulation methodology of the in-reactor fuel rod supporting conditions as a function of burnup has been developed and implemented in the GRIDFORCE program. The simulation methodology takes into account cladding creep rate, initial spring deflection, initial spring force, and spring force relaxation rate as the key fuel design parameters affecting the in-reactor fuel rod supporting conditions. Based on the parametric studies on these key parameters, it is found that the initial spring deflection, the spring force relaxation rate and cladding creepdown rate are in the order of the impact on the in-reactor fuel rod supporting conditions. Application of this simulation methodology to the fretting wear-induced failure experienced in a commercial plant indicates that this methodology can be utilized as an effective tool in evaluating the capability of newly developed cladding materials and/or new spacer grid designs against the fretting wear-induced damage.