Large-eddy simulation, fuel rod vibration and grid-to-rod fretting in pressurized water reactors

Christon, Mark A.; Lu, Roger; Bakosi, Jozsef; Nadiga, Balasubramanya T.; Karoutas, Zeses; Berndt, Markus

doi:10.1016/j.jcp.2016.06.042

Title: Large-eddy simulation, fuel rod vibration and grid-to-rod fretting in pressurized water reactors

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Abstract

Grid-to-rod fretting (GTRF) in pressurized water reactors is a flow-induced vibration phenomenon that results in wear and fretting of the cladding material on fuel rods. GTRF is responsible for over 70% of the fuel failures in pressurized water reactors in the United States. Predicting the GTRF wear and concomitant interval between failures is important because of the large costs associated with reactor shutdown and replacement of fuel rod assemblies. The GTRF-induced wear process involves turbulent flow, mechanical vibration, tribology, and time-varying irradiated material properties in complex fuel assembly geometries. This paper presents a new approach for predicting GTRF induced fuel rod wear that uses high-resolution implicit large-eddy simulation to drive nonlinear transient dynamics computations. The GTRF fluid–structure problem is separated into the simulation of the turbulent flow field in the complex-geometry fuel-rod bundles using implicit large-eddy simulation, the calculation of statistics of the resulting fluctuating structural forces, and the nonlinear transient dynamics analysis of the fuel rod. Ultimately, the methods developed here, can be used, in conjunction with operational management, to improve reactor core designs in which fuel rod failures are minimized or potentially eliminated. Furthermore, robustness of the behavior of both the structural forces computed from the turbulent flowmore »« less

Authors:

Christon, Mark A. ^[1]; Lu, Roger ^[2]; Bakosi, Jozsef ^[3]; Nadiga, Balasubramanya T. ^[3]; Karoutas, Zeses ^[2]; Berndt, Markus ^[3]

Computational Sciences International, Los Alamos, NM (United States); Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Westinghouse Electric Co., Hopkins, SC (United States)
Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Publication Date:: Sat Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 2016

Research Org.:: Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:: USDOE

OSTI Identifier:: 1291236

Alternate Identifier(s):: OSTI ID: 1359297

Report Number(s):: LA-UR-16-23692
Journal ID: ISSN 0021-9991

Grant/Contract Number:: AC52-06NA25396; AC05-00OR22725

Resource Type:: Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:: Journal of Computational Physics

Additional Journal Information:: Journal Volume: 322; Journal ID: ISSN 0021-9991

Publisher:: Elsevier

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Subject:: 21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS; thermal-hydraulics, nuclear reactor, rod-bundles, grid-to-rod fretting, implicit large-eddy simulation, nonlinear structural dynamics, incompressible flow, monotonicity-preserving advection

Citation Formats


                    Christon, Mark A., Lu, Roger, Bakosi, Jozsef, Nadiga, Balasubramanya T., Karoutas, Zeses, and Berndt, Markus. Large-eddy simulation, fuel rod vibration and grid-to-rod fretting in pressurized water reactors.  United States: N. p., 2016. 
Web.  doi:10.1016/j.jcp.2016.06.042.

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                    Christon, Mark A., Lu, Roger, Bakosi, Jozsef, Nadiga, Balasubramanya T., Karoutas, Zeses, & Berndt, Markus. Large-eddy simulation, fuel rod vibration and grid-to-rod fretting in pressurized water reactors.  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcp.2016.06.042

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                    Christon, Mark A., Lu, Roger, Bakosi, Jozsef, Nadiga, Balasubramanya T., Karoutas, Zeses, and Berndt, Markus. Sat .  
"Large-eddy simulation, fuel rod vibration and grid-to-rod fretting in pressurized water reactors".  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcp.2016.06.042.  https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1291236.

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@article{osti_1291236,

  title        = {Large-eddy simulation, fuel rod vibration and grid-to-rod fretting in pressurized water reactors},

  author       = {Christon, Mark A. and Lu, Roger and Bakosi, Jozsef and Nadiga, Balasubramanya T. and Karoutas, Zeses and Berndt, Markus},

  abstractNote = {Grid-to-rod fretting (GTRF) in pressurized water reactors is a flow-induced vibration phenomenon that results in wear and fretting of the cladding material on fuel rods. GTRF is responsible for over 70% of the fuel failures in pressurized water reactors in the United States. Predicting the GTRF wear and concomitant interval between failures is important because of the large costs associated with reactor shutdown and replacement of fuel rod assemblies. The GTRF-induced wear process involves turbulent flow, mechanical vibration, tribology, and time-varying irradiated material properties in complex fuel assembly geometries. This paper presents a new approach for predicting GTRF induced fuel rod wear that uses high-resolution implicit large-eddy simulation to drive nonlinear transient dynamics computations. The GTRF fluid–structure problem is separated into the simulation of the turbulent flow field in the complex-geometry fuel-rod bundles using implicit large-eddy simulation, the calculation of statistics of the resulting fluctuating structural forces, and the nonlinear transient dynamics analysis of the fuel rod. Ultimately, the methods developed here, can be used, in conjunction with operational management, to improve reactor core designs in which fuel rod failures are minimized or potentially eliminated. Furthermore, robustness of the behavior of both the structural forces computed from the turbulent flow simulations and the results from the transient dynamics analyses highlight the progress made towards achieving a predictive simulation capability for the GTRF problem.},

  doi          = {10.1016/j.jcp.2016.06.042},

  journal      = {Journal of Computational Physics},

  number       = ,

  volume       = 322,

  place        = {United States},

  year         = {Sat Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 2016},

  month        = {Sat Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 2016}

}

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