• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.8
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• pp.1629-1635
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• 2017

Reliable prediction of nuclear fuel rod behavior of nuclear power reactors constitutes a basic demand for steady-state calculations, design purposes, and fuel performance assessment. Perfect design of fuel rods as the first barrier against fission product release is very important. Simulation of fuel rod performance with a code or software is one of the fuel rod design steps. In this study, a software program called MARCODE is developed in MATLAB environment that can analyze the temperature distribution, gap conductance value, and fuel and clad displacement in both solid and annular fuel rods. With a comparison of the maximum fuel temperature, fuel average temperature, fuel surface temperature, and gap conductance in solid and annular fuel, the effects of a central hole on the fuel temperature distribution are investigated.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.12
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• pp.2880-2886
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• 2020

A small leak occurring on the surface of a fuel rod due to damage exposes UO₂ to a steam atmosphere. During this time, fission gas trapped inside the fuel rod leaks out, and the gas leakage can be increased due to UO₂ oxidation. Numerous studies have focused on the steam oxidation and its thermodynamic calculation in UO₂. However, the thermodynamic calculation of the UO₂ oxidation in a pressurized water reactor (PWR) environment has not been studied extensively. Moreover, the kinetics of the oxidation of UO₂ pellet also has not been investigated. Therefore, in this study, the thermodynamics of UO₂ oxidation under steam injection due to a damaged fuel rod in a PWR environment is studied. In addition, the diminishing radius of the UO₂ pellet with time in the PWR environment was calculated through an experiment simulating the initial time of steam injection at the puncture.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1996.05c
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• pp.21-26
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• 1996

Recently several PWR Nuclear Plant experienced fuel rod fretting wear failures due to Flow Induced Vibration. When such multi-span supported fuel assembly has vibration excitation, it is important to know how fretting wears are progress and when the fuel rods are start to failure. In this study, we estimate the amount of wear depth using Archard theory when the fuel rod starts to relative motion against spacer grid dimples.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.215-222
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• 2010

Long and slender body, like a fuel rod, oscillating in axial flow can be unstabilized even by the small cross flow which can be activated by the flow mixer or turbulent generator. It is important to include these effects of flow disturbance in dynamic stability analysis of nuclear fuel rod. This work shows how eigen frequency of a multi-span fuel rod can be changed by the swirl flow, which is discretely generated by a flow mixer. By solving a state-space form of the eigenvalue equation for a multi-span fuel rod system, the critical velocity at which a fuel rod becomes unstable was calculated. Based on the simulation results, we evaluated how stability of a multi-spanned nuclear fuel rod with mixing vanes can be affected by the coolant flow in an operating reactor core.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.343-349
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• 2014

Currently, in order to resist the scratching of the fuel rod surface while fabricating the fuel assembly of the light-water nuclear reactor, we use a solution of nitrocellulose, an explosive material, as a dry lubricant along with its solvent. However, the demand for developing safe and harmless aqueous alternative materials for environment-conservation and field-worker safety has increased. In this study, we demonstrate the preparation of a novel aqueous resin composite using a formulation of aqueous polymeric resin, alcoholic solvent, and water. Subsequently, we characterize this composite on the basis of hardness, adhesive property, and water solubility using plates similar to the fuel rod material. The insertion test of a fuel rod coated with the YS-3 composite shows load values of $18.8-20.5kg/cm^2$, which is comparable with $18.8-20.5kg/cm^2$ of the nitrocellulose coating agent. In addition, the depth and width of longitudinal scratches caused by the YS-3 composite test are 50% higher than those of the standard. We can develop a harmless and safe aqueous dry lubricant to replace the existing NC products through field testing of 264 pieces of fuel rods, after producing 350 kg of the YS-3 prototype. The scratch test for the rod surface showed that weight of chip of YS-3 prototype was smaller than that of NC before and after solvent treatment, indicating the properties of YS-3 prototype was comparable to the counterpart.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.73-82
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• 2001

Pressurized water reactor(PWR) fuel rods. which are continuously supported by a spring system called a spacer grid(SG), are exposed to reactor coolant at a flow velocity of up to 6-8 m/s. It is known that the vibration of 3 fuel rod is generated by the coolant flow, a so-called flow-induced-vibration(FIV), and the relative motion induced by the FIV between the fuel rod and the SG can wear away the surface of the fuel rod, which occasionally leads to its fretting failure. It is, therefore, important to understand the vibration characteristics of the fuel rod and reflect that in its design. In this paper, vibration analyses of the fuel rod with two different SGs were performed using both analytical and experimental methods. Updating of the finite element(FE) model using the measured data was performed in order to enhance confidence in the FE model of fuel rods supported by an SG. It was found that the modal parameters are very sensitive to the spring constant of the SG.

• 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.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.34 no.7
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• pp.843-850
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• 2010

A spacer grid assembly is one of the most important structural components of the nuclear fuel assembly of a Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR). A primary design requirement is that the fuel rod integrity be maintained by the spacer grid assembly during the operation of the reactor. In this study, we suggested a new spacer grid assembly having a fuel rod support, which is capable of sliding when the fuel rod vibrates due to flow-induced vibrations in the reactor. By adjusting the relative displacement between the fuel rod and its support, the proposed design will help in reducing fuel rod fretting damage.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.11
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• pp.3653-3664
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• 2021

In PWR three-dimensional transient coupling calculation software CORCA-K, the nodal Green's function method and diagonal implicit Runge Kutta method are used to solve the spatiotemporal neutron dynamic diffusion equation, and the single-phase closed channel model and one-dimensional cylindrical heat conduction transient model are used to calculate the coolant temperature and fuel temperature. The LMW, NEACRP and PWR MOX/UO₂ benchmarks and FangJiaShan (FJS) nuclear power plant (NPP) transient control rod move cases are used to verify the CORCA-K. The effects of burnup, fuel effective temperature and ejection rate on the control rod ejection process of PWR are analyzed. The conclusions are as follows: (1) core relative power and fuel Doppler temperature are in good agreement with the results of benchmark and ADPRES, and the deviation between with the reference results is within 3.0% in LMW and NEACRP benchmarks; 2) the variation trend of FJS NPP core transient parameters is consistent with the results of SMART and ADPRES. And the core relative power is in better agreement with the SMART when weighting coefficient is 0.7. Compared with SMART, the maximum deviation is -5.08% in the rod ejection condition and while -5.09% in the control rod complex movement condition.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.175-180
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• 1997

It has been known that eater-side corrosion of fuel rods in nuclear reactor is accompanied with the metallic loss of wall thickness and hydrogen pickup in the fuel dadding tube. The fuel dad corrosion is one of the major factors to be controlled to maintain the fuel integrity during reactor operation. An oxide later thickness measuring device equipped with ECT probe system was developed by KAERI, and whose performance test was carried out in NDT(Non-destructive Test) hot-cell or PIE(Post Irradiation Examination) Facility. At first, the calibration/performance test was executed for the unirradiated standard specimen rod fabricated with several kinds of plastic thin films whose thickness ore predetermined, and the result of which showed a good precision within 10% of discrepancy. And then, hot test us peformed for the irradiated fuel rod selectively extracted from J44 fuel assembly discharged from Kori Unit-2. The data obtained with this device were compared with the metallographic result obtained from destructive examination in PIEF hot-cell on the same fuel rod to verify the validity of the measurement data.