Compliance characteristics of cracked UO/sub 2/ pellets. [PWR; BWR]

Conference · Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1981

OSTI ID:5516257

Williford, R E; Mohr, C L; Lanning, D D

The thermally induced cracking of UO/sub 2/ fuel pellets causes simultaneous reductions of the bulk (extrinsic) fuel thermal conductivity and elastic moduli to values significantly less than those for solid pellets. The magnitude of these bulk properly reductions was found to be primarily dependent on the amount of crack area in the transverse plane of the fuel. The model described herein uses a simple description of the crack geometry to couple the fuel rod thermal and mechanical behaviors by relating in-reactor data to Hooke's Law and a crack compliance model. Data from the NRC/PNL Halden experiment IFA-432 show that for a typical helium-filled BWR-design rod at 30 kW/m, the effective thermal conductivity and elastic moduli of the cracked fuel are 4/5 and 1/40 of that for solid pellets, respectively.

• Research Organization: Pacific Northwest Lab., Richland, WA (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC06-76RL01830
• OSTI ID: 5516257
• Report Number(s): PNL-SA-9263; CONF-810801-63; ON: DE82005992; TRN: 82-010553
• Resource Relation: Conference: 6. international conference on structural mechanics in reactor technology, Paris, France, 17 Aug 1981
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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FRACTURE PROPERTIES
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
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PELLETS
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