• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.843-844
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• 2004

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1995.05a
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• pp.1008-1013
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• 1995

The CANFLEX fuel bundle has been developed by KAERI/AECL jointly to facilitate the use of various fuel cycles in CANDU-6 reactor. As one of the design evaluations, the structural analysis of the fuel bundles by hydraulic drag force is performed to evaluate the fuel integrity in the period of the refuelling in CANDU-6. The structural integrity is evaluated by FEM modelling for the complicated bundles configuration in channel. It is noted that the present analysis method is newly developed for the structural integrity evaluation. The analysis results show that the fuel bundle is shown to keep its structural integrity during the refuelling.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.313-317
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• 2018

Licenses for the storage of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and vitrified highly active waste in casks under dry conditions are limited to 40 years and have to be renewed for prolonged storage periods. If such a license renewal has to be expected since as in accordance with the new site selection procedure a final repository for spent fuel in Germany will not be available before the year 2050. For transport and possible unloading and loading in new casks for final storage, the integrity and the maintenance of the geometry of the cask's inventory is essential because the SNF rod cladding and the cladding of the vitrified highly active waste are stipulated as a barrier in the storage concept. For SNF, the cladding integrity is ensured currently by limiting the hoop stress and hoop strain as well as the maximum temperature to certain values for a 40-year storage period. For a prolonged storage period, other cladding degradation mechanisms such as inner and outer oxide layer formation, hydrogen pick up, irradiation damages in cladding material crystal structure, helium production from alpha decay, and long-term fission gas release may become leading effects driving degradation mechanisms that have to be discussed.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.8
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• pp.2792-2800
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• 2022

In the core of the WWR-K reactor, a long-term irradiation of tristructural isotopic (TRISO)-coated fuel particles (CFPs) with a UO₂ kernel was carried out under high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR)-like operating conditions. The temperature of this TRISO fuel during irradiation varied in the range of 950-1100 ℃. A fission per initial metal atom (FIMA) of uranium burnup of 9.9% was reached. The release of gaseous fission products was measured in-pile. The release-to-birth ratio (R/B) for the fission product isotopes was calculated. Aspects of fuel safety while achieving deep fuel burnup are important and relevant, including maintaining the integrity of the fuel coatings. The main mechanisms of fuel failure are kernel migration, silicon carbide corrosion by palladium, and gas pressure increase inside the CFP. The formation of gaseous fission products and carbon monoxide leads to an increase in the internal pressure in the CFP, which is a dominant failure mechanism of the coatings under this level of burnup. Irradiated fuel compacts were subjected to electric dissociation to isolate the CFPs from the fuel compacts. In addition, nondestructive methods, such as X-ray radiography and gamma spectrometry, were used. The predicted R/B ratio was evaluated using the fission gas release model developed in the high-temperature test reactor (HTTR) project. In the model, both the through-coatings of failed CFPs and as-fabricated uranium contamination were assumed to be sources of the fission gas. The obtained R/B ratio for gaseous fission products allows the finalization and validation of the model for the release of fission products from the CFPs and fuel compacts. The success of the integrity of TRISO fuel irradiated at approximately 9.9% FIMA was demonstrated. A low fuel failure fraction and R/B ratios indicated good performance and reliability of the studied TRISO fuel.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.115-124
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• 2013

Among the several options to solve PWR spent fuel accumulation problem in Korea, the dry storage method could be the most realistic and applicable solution in the near future. As the basic objectives of dry storage are to prevent a gross rupture of spent fuel during operation and to keep its retrievability until transportation, at the same time the importance of a spent fuel integrity evaluation that can estimate its condition at the final stage of dry storage is very high. According to the national need and technology progress, two representative nations of spent fuel dry storage, the USA and Japan, have established different system temperature criteria, which is the only controllable factor in a dry storage system. However, there are no technical criteria for this evaluation in Korea yet, it is necessary to review the previously well-organized methodologies of advanced countries and to set up our own domestic evaluation direction due to the nation's need for dry storage. To satisfy this necessity, building a domestic spent fuel test database should be the first step. Based on those data, it is highly recommended to compare domestic data range with foreign results, to build our own criteria, and to expand on evaluation work into recently issued integrity problems by using a comprehensive integrity evaluation code.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1998.05b
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• pp.175-180
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• 1998

The U-Zr metallic alloy with low swelling HT9 cladding is the candidate for the KALIMER fuel rod. The fuel rod should be able to maintain the structural integrity during its lifetime in the reactor. In a typical metallic fuel rod, load is mainly applied by internal gas pressure, and the deformation is primarily caused by creep of the cladding. The three-dimensional FEM modelling of a fuel rod is important to predict the structural behavior in concept design stage. Using the ANSYS code, the 3-D structure analyses were performed for various configuration, element and loads. It has been shown that the present analysis model properly evaluate the structural integrity of fuel rod. The present analysis results show that the fuel rod is expected to maintain its structural integrity during normal operation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.359-374
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• 2024

A high-fidelity numerical analysis methodology was proposed for evaluating the fuel rod cladding integrity of a Prototype Gen IV Sodium Fast Reactor (PGSFR) during normal operation and Design basis events (DBEs). The MARS-LMR code, system transient safety analysis code, was applied to analyze the DBEs. The results of the MARS-LMR code were used as boundary condition for a 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. The peak temperatures considering HCFs satisfied the cladding temperature limit. The temperature and pressure distributions were calculated by ANSYS CFX code, and applied to structural analysis. Structural analysis was performed using ANSYS Mechanical code. The seismic reactivity insertion SSE accident among DBEs had the highest peak cladding temperature and the maximum stress, as the value of 87 MPa. The fuel cladding had over 40 % safety margin, and the strain was below the strain limit. Deformation behavior was elucidated for providing relative coordinate data on each active fuel rod center. Bending deformation resulted in a flower shape, and bowing bundle did not interact with the duct of fuel assemblies. Fuel rod maximum expansion was generated with highest stress. Therefore, it was concluded that the fuel rod cladding of the PGSFR has sufficient structural safety margin during DBEs.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.18 no.spc
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• pp.21-36
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• 2020

With respect to spent nuclear fuels, disposal containers and bentonite buffer blocks in deep geological disposal systems are the primary engineered barrier elements that are required to isolate radioactive toxicity for a long period of time and delay the leakage of radio nuclides such that they do not affect human and natural environments. Therefore, the thermal stability of the bentonite buffer and structural integrity of the disposal container are essential factors for maintaining the safety of a deep geological disposal system. The most important requirement in the design of such a system involves ensuring that the temperature of the buffer does not exceed 100℃ because of the decay heat emitted from high-level wastes loaded in the disposal container. In addition, the disposal containers should maintain structural integrity under loads, such as hydraulic pressure, at an underground depth of 500 m and swelling pressure of the bentonite buffer. In this study, we analyzed the thermal stability and structural integrity in a deep geological disposal environment of the improved deep geological disposal systems for domestic light-water and heavy-water reactor types of spent nuclear fuels, which were considered to be subject to direct disposal. The results of the thermal stability and structural integrity assessments indicated that the improved disposal systems for each type of spent nuclear fuel satisfied the temperature limit requirement (< 100℃) of the disposal system, and the disposal containers were observed to maintain their integrity with a safety ratio of 2.0 or higher in the environment of deep disposal.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2017.10a
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• pp.115-116
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• 2017

For the safe transportation of SNF and licensing, the integrity of SNF should be evaluated carefully. Researches to obtain the data for SNF cladding properties, i.e. impact toughness, DBTT (hydride behavior) when evaluating transportation of SNF, shall be precisely implemented by simulating the condition of real SNF to the hilt, accordingly.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.559-570
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• 2023

The aim of this study is to ensure the structural integrity of a canister to be used in a dry storage system currently being developed in Korea. Based on burnup and cooling periods, the canister is designed with 24 bundles of spent nuclear fuel stored inside it. It is a cylindrical structure with a height of 4,890 mm, an internal diameter of 1,708 mm, and an inner length of 4,590 mm. The canister lid is fixed with multiple seals and welds to maintain its confinement boundary to prevent the leakage of radioactive waste. The canister is evaluated under different loads that may be generated under normal, off-normal, and accident conditions, and combinations of these loads are compared against the allowable stress thresholds to assess its structural integrity in accordance with NUREG-2215. The evaluation result shows that the stress intensities applied on the canister under normal, off-normal, and accident conditions are below the allowable stress thresholds, thus confirming its structural integrity.