Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Fretting wear behaviors of a dual-cooled nuclear fuel rod under a simulated rod vibration

Journal Article · · AIP Conference Proceedings
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4725460· OSTI ID:22004168
; ; ; ; ;  [1]
  1. Innovative Nuclear Fuel Division, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute 1045 Daedeokdaero, Yuseong, Daejeon, 305-353 (Korea, Republic of)
Recently, a dual-cooled fuel (i.e., annular fuel) that is compatible with current operating PWR plants has been proposed in order to realize both a considerable amount of power uprating and an increase of safety margins. As the design concept should be compatible with current operating PWR plants, however, it shows a narrow gap between the fuel rods when compared with current solid nuclear fuel arrays and needs to modify the spacer grid shapes and their positions. In this study, fretting wear tests have been performed to evaluate the wear resistance of a dual-cooled fuel by using a proposed spring and dimple of spacer grids that have a cantilever type and hemispherical shape, respectively. As a result, the wear volume of the spring specimen gradually increases as the contact condition is changed from a certain gap, just contact to positive force. However, in the dimple specimen, just contact condition shows a large wear volume. In addition, a circular rod motion at upper region of contact surface is gradually increased and its diametric size depends on the wear depth increase. Based on the test results, the fretting wear resistance of the proposed spring and dimple is analyzed by comparing the wear measurement results and rod motion in detail.
OSTI ID:
22004168
Journal Information:
AIP Conference Proceedings, Journal Name: AIP Conference Proceedings Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 1448; ISSN 0094-243X; ISSN APCPCS
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English