Pendulum Impact Tests for 16by16 Through Welded Spacer Grids with Optimized H type Springs

선용접방법으로 제작된 $16{\times}16$ 최적화 H형 스프링 지지격자에 대한 진자식충격시험

The General roles of a spacer grid(SG) are providing a lateral and vertical support for fuel rods, promoting a mixing of coolant and keeping guide tubes straight so as not to impede a control rod insertion under any normal or accidental conditions. To evaluate the impact characteristics of a SG such as impact velocity, critical buckling strength and duration time, a few types of impact tests for SGs have been conducted. In a previous study, a new welding method, a through-welding method, was proposed to increase critical buckling strength of a SG without any design change or material change and was verified by impact tests with $7{\times}7$ partial SG specimens.In this paper, the effect of through-welding method in case of a $16{\times}16$ full-size SG is investigated by pendulum impact tests with $16{\times}16$ SG specimens. And the increase of critical buckling strength for full-size SGs is measured by comparison with impact results of spot-welded and through-welded SGs.