Experimental Study on the Influence of the Supporting Condition and Rod Motion on the Fuel Fretting Damage
- Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, 1045 Daedukdaero Yuseong-ku, Daejeon 305-353 (Korea, Republic of)
Present study focuses on the influence of a supporting condition and a rod motion on a fuel fretting wear through experiments using a self-developed wear simulator, which was presented at the Water Reactor Fuel Performance Meeting, Kyoto Japan in 2005. In the experiment, a fuel rod specimen of two span lengths is vibrated by two perpendicularly aligned electromagnetic actuators. Both ends of the rod specimen are supported with a positive contact force and a variation of the supporting condition is simulated by moving each of the four grid strap specimens constituting a center grid cell. As for the supporting condition, 0.1 mm gap and 10 N force are used; a circular and a diagonal traces are applied for the rod motion. The contact shape of the spring/dimple is concave, to try and increase the contact area. Both the spring/dimple and fuel rod specimens were fabricated from the as-received materials (zirconium alloy) for a commercial fuel assembly. Experiments are carried out under a room temperature and distilled water condition. Experiment of each condition is carried out for 72 hours. Wear volume, area and depth on the cladding tubes are examined. As a result, the present concave shaped spring/dimple causes less wear when the rod moves in a circular manner than a diagonal one if there is a positive contact force (10 N). However, a diagonal motion causes more wear when a gap (0.1 mm) exists. Wear amount at the spring and dimple is influenced by the location of them and the rod motion. It is found that the wear is concentrated at the contact edges between the spring/dimple and rods due to the contact shape. The influence of the rod motion on the worn area and its shape is also discussed. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 21229283
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 2007 LWR Fuel Performance Meeting / TopFuel 2007, San Francisco, CA (United States), 30 Sep - 3 Oct 2007; Other Information: Country of input: France; 9 refs; Related Information: In: Proceedings of the 2007 LWR Fuel Performance Meeting / TopFuel 2007 'Zero by 2010', 683 pages.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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