• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.705-709
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• 2002

The spacer grids in nuclear fuel assembly locate and align the fuel rods with respect to each other. They provide axial and lateral restraint against an excessive rod motion mainly caused by coolant flow. It is understood that each rod Is supported by multiple spacer grid. In such a case, it is important to determine spacer grid span so as to avoid resonance between the natural frequency of the fuel rods and excitation frequency. Actually dynamic characteristics of the fuel rods can be improved by assigning adequate spacer grid locations. When a dynamic performance of the structure is to be improved, design sensitivity analysis plays an important role as like many structural redesign problems. In this work, a shape design concept, different from conventional design, was applied to the problem. According to the theory shape can be a design parameter and optimal shape design can be found. This study concentrates on eigenvalue design sensitivity of the fuel rod supported by multiple spacer grids to determine optimal spacer grids positions.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.515-518
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• 2006

A vibration test for a cylindrical rod inserted on the grid support structure was tested using the sine sweep excitation method with closed loop force control. The effect of the mounting location of a test rod on the vibration characteristics of a rod continuously supported by the full size($16{\times}16$) grid support was identified. An electromagnetic vibration shaker, non-contact displacement sensor and HP/VXI data acquisition device were used and TDAS software was also used as a data sampling and processing tools. The natural frequencies and mode shape of the test rod were consistent with the previous works of a rod vibration test with partial grids($3{\times}3,\;5{\times}5\;and\;7{\times}7$). The frequency characteristics of the rod according to the mounting location were shown clear discrepancies, but mode shapes were nearly same. As the test rod closes to the bottom clamping region of the spacer grid, peak vibration amplitudes of the rod become smaller.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.5
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• pp.1914-1928
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• 2022

To improve the heat transfer efficiency of the reactor fuel assembly, it is necessary to accurately calculate the two-phase flow boiling characteristics and the critical heat flux (CHF) in the fuel assembly. In this paper, a Eulerian two-fluid model combined with the extended wall boiling model was used to numerically simulate the 5 × 5 fuel rod bundle with spacer grids (four sets of mixing vane grids and four sets of simple support grids without mixing vanes). We calculated and analyzed 11 experimental conditions under different pressure, inlet temperature, and mass flux. After comparing the CHF and the location of departure from the nucleate boiling obtained by the numerical simulation with the experimental results, we confirmed the reliability of computational fluid dynamic analysis for the prediction of the CHF of the rod bundle and the boiling characteristics of the two-phase flow. Subsequently, we analyzed the influence of the spacer grid and mixing vanes on the void fraction, liquid temperature, and secondary flow distribution. The research in this article provides theoretical support for the design of fuel assemblies.