DEVELOPMENT OF AN IN-PILE TECHNIQUE FOR THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY MEASUREMENT

Conference · Wed Apr 01 04:00:00 EDT 2009

OSTI ID:957539

Fox, Brandon; Ban, Heng; Rempe, Joy L; Daw, Joshua E; Condie, Keith G; Knudson, Darrell L

Thermophysical properties of advanced fuels and materials during irradiation must be known prior to their use in existing, advanced, or next generation reactors. Fuel thermal conductivity is one of the most important properties for predicting fuel performance and reactor safety. This paper discusses a joint Utah State University (USU)/Idaho National Laboratory (INL) project to investigate an in-pile fuel thermal conductivity measurement technique using a surrogate fuel rod. The method used a surrogate fuel rod with Joule heating to simulate volumetric heat generation as a proof-of-concept test in-pile application. Carbon structural foam, CFOAM®, a product of Touchtone Research Laboratory was chosen as the surrogate material because of the variable electrical and thermal properties upon fabrication. To stay within the surrogate fuel rod requirements, electrical and thermal properties were tailored by Touchtone Research Laboratory to match required values. This paper describes are the techniques used for quantifying thermal conductivity. A description of the test setup and preliminary results are presented. Two thermocouples are inserted into a 1-inch diameter, 6-inch long rod of CFOAM® at known locations. Knowing the applied volumetric heat to the rod by electrical resistance heating, the thermal conductivity can be calculated. Sensitivities of this measurement can also found by analysis and testing of different configurations of the sample setup. Verification of thermal conductivity is found by measuring the thermal properties of the CFOAM® using different methods. Thermal properties including thermal conductivity, specific heat capacity, and expansion coefficient of two types of CFOAM®, CFOAM20 and CFOAM25, were characterized using standard measurement techniques, such as laser flash, differential scanning calorimetry, and pushrod dilatometry.

• Research Organization: Idaho National Laboratory (INL)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC07-99ID13727
• OSTI ID: 957539
• Report Number(s): INL/CON-09-15260
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
CALORIMETRY
CAPACITY
CARBON
DILATOMETRY
ELECTRIC CONDUCTIVITY
FABRICATION
FUEL RODS
HEATING
IRRADIATION
In-pile Instrumentation
JOULE HEATING
LASERS
REACTOR SAFETY
SPECIFIC HEAT
TESTING
THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY
THERMOCOUPLES
THERMODYNAMIC PROPERTIES
Thermal Conductivity
VERIFICATION