Pellet-Cladding Mechanical Interaction Failure Threshold for Reactivity Initiated Accidents for Pressurized Water Reactors and Boiling Water Reactors

Technical Report · Sat Jun 01 04:00:00 EDT 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1362006· OSTI ID:1362006

Beyer, Carl E. ^[1]; Geelhood, Kenneth J. ^[1]

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1. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has been requested by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to evaluate the reactivity initiated accident (RIA) tests that have recently been performed in the Nuclear Safety Research Reactor (NSRR) and CABRI (French research reactor) on uranium dioxide (UO₂) and mixed uranium and plutonium dioxide (MOX) fuels, and to propose pellet-cladding mechanical interaction (PCMI) failure thresholds for RIA events. This report discusses how PNNL developed PCMI failure thresholds for RIA based on least squares (LSQ) regression fits to the RIA test data from cold-worked stress relief annealed (CWSRA) and recrystallized annealed (RXA) cladding alloys under pressurized water reactor (PWR) hot zero power (HZP) conditions and boiling water reactor (BWR) cold zero power (CZP) conditions.

• Research Organization: Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-76RL01830
• OSTI ID: 1362006
• Report Number(s): PNNL--22549; 453040371
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
BWR
PCMI
PWR
RIA
failure threshold
pellet-cladding mechanical interaction
reactivity initiated accidents