Crack Stability in Breached Fuel

Technical Report · Sun Feb 07 23:00:00 EST 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1764826· OSTI ID:1764826

Lam, Poh-Sang ^[1]; Sindelar, Robert L. ^[1]

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1. Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, SC (United States). Savannah River National Lab. (SRNL)

This report describes the fracture mechanics formalism to evaluate the stability of cracks in a fuel cladding. Recognized consensus-body linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) was applied to identify the crack instability length, or the length at which unstable mechanical crack extension would occur, as a function of pellet swelling loading (radial strain and fraction conversion from UO₂ to U₃O₈) at the local cracked cladding region for two postulated fracture toughness (K_IC) values of the cladding. The crack opening displacement (COD) and the crack opening area (COA) were also identified. This analysis informs evaluations for crack extension and the potential for pellet debris loss from the fuel rod for cases of pellet oxidation in dry storage canisters where inadvertent residual water may undergo radiolysis causing oxidizing conditions to pellets exposed to the canister environment through breached cladding.

• Research Organization: Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, SC (United States); Savannah River National Lab (SRNL), Aiken, SC (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Environmental Management (EM)
• DOE Contract Number: AC09-08SR22470
• OSTI ID: 1764826
• Report Number(s): SRNL-STI--2021-00056
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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