Abstract
A modified energy method for the fretting wear of the steam generator tube is proposed to calculate the wear-out depth between the nuclear steam generator tube and its support. Estimation of fretting-wear damage typically requires a non-linear dynamic analysis with the information of the gap velocity and the flow density around the tube. This analysis is very complex and time consuming. The basic concept of the energy method is that the volume wear rate due to the fretting-wear phenomena Is related to work rate which is time rate of the product of normal contact force and sliding distance. The wearing motion is due to dynamic interaction between vibrating tube and its support structure, such as tube support plate and anti-vibration bar. It can be assumed that the absorbed work rate would come from turbulent flow energy around the vibrating tube. This study also numerically obtains the wear-out depth with various wear topologies. A new dissection method is applied to the multi-span tubes to represent the vibrational mode. It turns out that both the secondary side density and the normal gap velocity are important parameters for the fretting-wear phenomena of the steam generator tube.
