High Burn-Up Spent Nuclear Fuel Vibration Integrity Study

Conference · Wed Dec 31 23:00:00 EST 2014

OSTI ID:1210132

Wang, Jy-An John ^[1]; Wang, Hong ^[1]; Jiang, Hao ^[1]; Bevard, Bruce Balkcom ^[1]; Howard, Rob L ^[1]; Scaglione, John M ^[1]

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1. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has developed the cyclic integrated reversible-bending fatigue tester (CIRFT) approach to successfully demonstrate the controllable fatigue fracture on high burnup (HBU) spent nuclear fuel (SNF) in a normal vibration mode. CIRFT enables examination of the underlying mechanisms of SNF system dynamic performance. Due to the inhomogeneous composite structure of the SNF system, the detailed mechanisms of the pellet-pellet and pellet-clad interactions and the stress concentration effects at the pellet-pellet interface cannot be readily obtained from a CIRFT system measurement. Therefore, finite element analyses (FEAs) are used to translate the global moment-curvature measurement into local stress-strain profiles for further investigation. The major findings of CIRFT on the HBU SNF are as follows: SNF system interface bonding plays an important role in SNF vibration performance. Fuel structure contributes to SNF system stiffness. There are significant variations in stress and curvature of SNF systems during vibration cycles resulting from segment pellets and clad interactions. SNF failure initiates at the pellet-pellet interface region and appears to be spontaneous.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). High Temperature Materials Laboratory (HTML)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1210132
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
BENDING
BONDING
BURNUP
FATIGUE
FINITE ELEMENT METHOD
FLEXIBILITY
FRACTURES
FUEL PELLETS
FUEL-CLADDING INTERACTIONS
INTERFACES
MECHANICAL VIBRATIONS
PERFORMANCE
SPENT FUELS
STRAINS
STRESSES
VARIATIONS
fuel vibration inetgrity
pellet-pellet interface
reversal bending fatigue
spent nuclear fuel