• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.171-180
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• 2022

Time-dependent stress-strain behaviour significantly influences the compressibility characteristics of the clayey soil. In this paper, a series of oedometer tests were conducted in two loading patterns and investigated the time-dependent compressibility characteristics of Indian Montmorillonite Clay, also known as black cotton soil (BC) soil, during loading-unloading stages. The experimental data are analyzed using a new non-linear function of the Elasto-Visco-Plastic Model considering Swelling behaviour (EVPS model). From the experimental result, it is found that BC soil exhibits significant time-dependent behaviour during creep compared to the swelling stage. Pore water entrance restriction due to consolidated overburden pressure and decrease in cation hydrations are responsible factors. Apart from it, particle sliding is also evident during creep. The time-dependent parameters like strain limit, creep coefficient and C_αe/C_c are observed to be significant during the loading stage than the swelling stage. The relationship between creep coefficients and applied stresses is found to be nonlinear. The creep coefficient increases significantly up to 630 kPa-760 kPa (during reloading), and beyond it, the creep coefficient decreases continuously. Several parameters like loading duration, the magnitude of applied stress, loading history, and loading path have also influenced secondary compressibility characteristics. The time-dependent compressibility characteristics of BC soil are presented and discussed in detail.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.43 no.8 s.291
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• pp.479-485
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• 2006

The residual stress changes on thermo-mechanical loading in the interface region of the Thermal Barrier Coating (TBC)/Thermally Grown Oxide (TGO)/Bond Coat (BC) were calculated on the TBC-coated superalloys using a Finite Element Method (FEM). It was found that the residual stress of the interface boundary was dependent upon mainly the oxide formation and the swelling rate of the oxide by creep relaxation. During an oxide swelling, the relaxation of residual stress which is due to creep deformation increased the TBC's life. In the case of the fine grain size of TGO scale, the TBC stresses piled up by oxide swelling could be relaxed by diffusional creep effect of TGO.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.11
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• pp.3723-3740
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• 2021

The harsh conditions in the reactor affect the thermal and mechanical performance of the fuel plate heavily. Some in-pile behaviors, like fission-induced swelling, can cause a large deformation of fuel plate at very high burnup, which may even disturb the flow of coolant. In this research, the emphasis is put on the thermal expansion, fission-induced swelling, interaction layer (IL) growth, creep of the fuel meat, and plasticity of the cladding for the U₃Si₂/Al dispersion fuel plate. A detailed model of the fuel meat swelling is developed. Taking these in-pile behaviors into consideration, the three-dimensional large deformation incremental constitutive relations and stress update algorithms have been developed to study its thermal-mechanical performance under normal conditions using Abaqus. Results have shown that IL can effectively decrease the thermal conductivity of fuel meat. The high Mises stress region mainly locates at the interface between fuel meat and cladding, especially around the side edge of the interface. With irradiation time increasing, the stress in the fuel plate gets larger resulting from the growth of fuel meat swelling but then decreases under the effect of creep deformation. For the cladding, plasticity deformation does not occur within the irradiation time.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.8
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• pp.2616-2628
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• 2021

The results of effective irradiation swelling in a wide range of burnup levels are numerically obtained for an inert matrix fuel, which are verified with DART model. The fission gas swelling of fuel particles is calculated with a mechanistic model, which depends on the external hydrostatic pressure. Additionally, irradiation and thermal creep effects are included in the inert matrix. The effects of matrix creep strains, external hydrostatic pressure and temperature on the effective irradiation swelling are investigated. The research results indicate that (1) the above effects are coupled with each other; (2) the matrix creep effects at high temperatures should be involved; and (3) ranged from 0 to 300 MPa, a remarkable dependence of external hydrostatic pressure can be found. Furthermore, an explicit multi-variable mathematic model is established for the effective irradiation swelling, as a function of particle volume fraction, temperature, external hydrostatic pressure and fuel particle fission density, which can well reproduce the finite element results. The mathematic model for the current volume fraction of fuel particles can help establish other effective performance models.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.413-421
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• 2004

In this paper, a structural analysis for the pressurized water reactor(PWR) spent nuclear fuel disposal canister which is deposited under the 500m deep underground is carried out to predict the creep deformation of the canister while the underground water and swelling bentonite pressure are applied on the canister. Usually the creep deformation may be caused due to the Pressure and the high heat applied to the canister even though additional external loads are not applied to the canister. These creep deformations depend on the time. In this paper, oかy the underground water and bentonite swelling Pressure are considered for the creep deformation analysis of the canister, because the heat distribution inside canister due the spent fuel is not simple and depends on time. A proper creep function is adopted for the creep analysis. The creep analysis is carried out during $10^8$ seconds. The creep analysis results show that the creep strains are very small and these strains occur usually in the lid and bottom of the canister not in the cast iron insert. A much smaller strain is found in the cast iron insert. Hence, the creep deformation doesn't affect the structural safety of the canister, and also the creep stress which shows the stress relaxation phenomenon doesn't affect the structural safety of the canister.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.11-18
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• 2006

This study was carried out to evaluate the mechano-sorptive deflection of shear creep of drift pin jointed solid wood. Specimens were the solid wood of Pinus densiflora. The joint was composed with steel plate and drift pin, 85mm in length and 10mm in diameter. The creep tests were conducted under the constant loads in an variable environment. Five different shearing loads were applied parallel to the grain of specimens. The shearing loads applied were 170, 340, 510, 680 and 850 kgf. The stress levels were 10, 20, and 30, 40 and 50% of the bearing strength obtained from the tension-type lateral strength test. The creep tests for specimens were carried out for 10300 hours. A few general conclusions could be drawn from this study: The mechano-sorptive deflection (${\delta}$ ms) is defined as ${\delta}\;ms={\delta}\;t-({\delta}\;c+{\delta}\;sh)-{\delta}\;o$, where ${\delta}$ t is the total deflection, ${\delta}$ c is the pure creep, ${\delta}$ sh is shrinkage-swelling behavior, and ${\delta}$ o is the initial deflection. Changes of relative humidity may cause more severe creep deflection than those of constant humidity, especially during the drying process. The mechano-sorptive behaviors of specimens, except the effects of shrinkage and swelling, gradually increased with increasing time. The deflection is increased in desorption process and recovered in adsorption process. The deflections of drift pin jointed solid wood under different loads showed almost same tendency in all specimens. Although the creep deflection tendencies of each series are very similar, the specimens subjected to a large shearing load exhibit large creep deflections in the desorption process than do those to the small shearing load specimens.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.80-99
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• 2023

This paper presents the results of investigating the change in welding residual stresses of the core shroud, which is one of subcomponents in reactor vessel internals, performing finite element analysis. First, the welding residual stresses of the core shroud were calculated by applying the heat conduction based lumped pass technique and finite element elastic-plastic stress analysis. Second, the temperature distribution of the core shroud during the normal operation was calculated by performing finite element temperature analysis considering gamma heating. Third, through the finite element viscoelastic-plastic stress analysis using the calculated temperature distribution and setting the calculated residual stresses as the initial stress state, the variation of the welding residual stresses was derived according to repeating the normal operation. In the viscoelastic-plastic stress analysis, the effects of neutron irradiation on mechanical properties during the cyclic normal operations were considered by using the previously developed user subroutines for the irradiation agings such as irradiation hardening/embrittlement, irradiation-induced creep, and void swelling. Finally, the effect of neutron irradiation on the welding residual stresses was analysed for each irradiation aging. As a result, it is found that as the normal operation is repeated, the welding residual stresses decrease and show insignificant magnitudes after the 10^th refueling cycle. In addition, the irradiation-induced creep/void swelling has significant mitigation effect on the residual stresses whereas the irradiation hardening/embrittlement has no effect on those.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.9
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• pp.3884-3897
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• 2024

This study investigates the creep behavior of bentonite-sand mixtures as potential buffer materials for low-level radioactive waste (LLW) repositories, with a specific case study in Taiwan. To assess the long-term hydro-mechanical properties, constant-volume swelling pressure, hydraulic conductivity, strain-controlled shear, and stress-controlled shear tests were conducted on MX80 and KV1 bentonite-sand mixtures. The experimental results indicate that MX80-sand 70/30 mixtures are prioritized as the buffer materials with 2.10 MPa swelling pressure and 1 × 10^-13 m/s hydraulic conductivity. However, the shear strength of mixtures was reduced by almost 50 % when fully saturated. Furthermore, this study proposed a novel stress-controlled direct shear apparatus to retrieve the creep model parameters. The numerical method based on the creep model efficiently supports and simulates the saturation process and creep displacement. The finite element method (FEM) result predicts that the buffer of both bentonite-sand mixtures will achieve an average degree of saturation of 95 % at the end of three decades and full saturation in 100 years. The simulated creep displacement results at key nodes suggest that both top and bottom parts in the buffer, assembled from MX80-sand 70/30 mixtures or KV1-sand 70/30 mixtures, will have almost equivalent values of 4 mm in the horizontal and 2 mm in the vertical directions eventually.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.157-169
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• 2022

Preloading of soft clays is a common ground stabilization method for improvement of compressibility and the undrained shear strength. The waiting period under preload is a primary design criterion controlling the degree of improvement obtained. Upon unloading the overconsolidation attained with respect to actual loads defines the long term performance. This paper presents a laboratory study for investigation of creep behavior of Famagusta Bay alluvial soft soil preloaded under various effective stresses for analysis of long term performance based on the degree of overconsolidation. Traditional one-dimensional consolidation tests as well as modified creep tests are performed on reconstituted soft specimens. Compressibility parameters are precisely backcalculated using one dimensional consolidation theory and the coefficient of creep is determined using the traditional Cassagrande method as well as two modified methods based on log cycles of time and the inflection of the creep curve. The test results indicated that the long term creep can be successfully predicted considering the proposed method. The creep coefficients derived as part of this method can also be related to the recompression index (recompression index, swelling index) considering the results of the testing method adopted in this study.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.150-161
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• 1996

A deformation model was developed to calculate the deformation of the uranium-silicide dispersion fuel (U$_3$Si-Al) elements for research reactors. The model was based on the elasto-plasticity theory and power-law creep theory. Also, isotopic swelling was assumed for the fuel meat and isotropic thermal expansion for the fuel meat and dadding. The new model calculated successfully the deformation of the fuels of HANARO and NRU (in Canada). As the most important result, it was shown that the primary deformation mechanism in the fuel meat was swelling and that in the cladding was creep. For all cases simulated, the maximum hoop stress at cladding outer surface was lass than 5MPa, probably well below the yield stress of the dadding, and finally, the volume change was predicted to be less than 10% in the whole burnup range.