Fuel Swelling and Creep Analysis for a MURR LEU U-10Mo Monolithic Plate
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Chemical and Fuel Cycle Technologies Division
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Nuclear Science and Engineering Division
In this work, finite element analysis (FEA) is used to model and simulate the thermo-mechanical behavior of a selected LEU MURR fuel plate under typical irradiation conditions of the proposed LEU MURR core. The proposed LEU fuel element for MURR conversion has 23 curved fuel plates. The fuel element design and analysis are described in Reference [7]. The safety analysis for calculating the margin to flow instability that had elements with a mixture of burnups, which is typical for MURR operations. In addition to the application of engineering hot channel factors to account for variations in the fuel element manufacturing that could affect the coolant channel gaps, the analysis assumed a constriction of the coolant channel gaps due to an increase in the fuel plate thicknesses during the element lifetime. Estimates of the local plate thickness increase at end-of-life (EOL) due to fuel swelling and creep were developed from experimental data presented in References [8] and [9]. The maximum local plate thickness increase from that analysis was calculated for fuel plate 23 in an EOL element. Furthermore, the minimum margin to flow instability for the reference LEU cores was calculated to occur in coolant channel 23 of an EOL element, which is the coolant channel between plates 22 and 23. Therefore,the work performed here evaluated plate 23 only, as this was found to be the most limiting plate.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation (NA-20). Office of Material Management and Minimization (M3
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-06CH11357
- OSTI ID:
- 1509901
- Report Number(s):
- ANL/RTR/TM-18/19; 151846
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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