Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
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Thermo-mechanical coupling behavior analysis for a U-10Mo/Al monolithic fuel assembly

  • Mao, Xiaoxiao (Institute of Mechanics and Computational Engineering, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Fudan University) ;
  • Jian, Xiaobin (Institute of Mechanics and Computational Engineering, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Fudan University) ;
  • Wang, Haoyu (Science and Technology on Reactor System Design Technology Laboratory, Nuclear Power Institute of China) ;
  • Zhang, Jingyu (Institute of Mechanics and Computational Engineering, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Fudan University) ;
  • Zhang, Jibin (Science and Technology on Reactor System Design Technology Laboratory, Nuclear Power Institute of China) ;
  • Yan, Feng (Institute of Mechanics and Computational Engineering, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Fudan University) ;
  • Wei, Hongyang (Institute of Mechanics and Computational Engineering, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Fudan University) ;
  • Ding, Shurong (Institute of Mechanics and Computational Engineering, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Fudan University) ;
  • Li, Yuanming (Science and Technology on Reactor System Design Technology Laboratory, Nuclear Power Institute of China)
  • Received : 2021.01.13
  • Accepted : 2021.03.03
  • Published : 2021.09.25
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Abstract

A typical three-dimensional finite element model for a fuel assembly is established, which is composed of 16 monolithic U-10Mo fuel plates and Al alloy frame. The distribution and evolution results of temperature, displacement and stresses/strains in all the parts are numerically obtained and analyzed with a self-developed code of FUELTM. The simulation results indicate that (1) the out-of-plane displacements of Al alloy side plates are mainly attributed to the bending deformations; (2) enhanced out-of-plane displacements appear in fuel plates adjacent to the outside Al plates, which results from the occurred bending deformations due to the applied constraints of outside Al plates; (3) an intense interaction of fuel foil with the cladding occurs near the foil edge, which appears more heavily in the fuel plates adjacent to the outside Al plates. The maximum first principal stresses in the fuel foil are similar for all the fuel plates and appear near the fuel foil edge; while, the through-thickness creep strains of fuel foil in the fuel plate near the central region of fuel assembly are larger, and the induced creep damage might weaken the fuel skeleton strength and raise the fuel failure risk.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

The authors thank for the support of National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 11772095), the support of the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No.2016YFB0700103), the supports of the foundation from Science and Technology on Reactor System Design Technology Laboratory.

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