Publication detail

Thermomechanical assessment of fuel rod cladding made of zirconium alloy and silicon carbide material during reactivity-initiated accident

HALABUK, D. NÁVRAT, T.

English title

Thermomechanical assessment of fuel rod cladding made of zirconium alloy and silicon carbide material during reactivity-initiated accident

Type

journal article in Web of Science

Language

en

Original abstract

This paper presents a thermomechanical assessment of various types of fuel cladding during a reactivity-initiated accident (RIA) which is simulated by the finite element analysis program ANSYS. Four cladding concepts are analyzed; one concept considers currently used zirconium alloy and three concepts consider silicon carbide (SiC) material. The SiC claddings consist either of composite material or of a twolayered structure formed of SiC composite and monolithic SiC. Each cladding is analyzed for two states of nuclear fuel: fresh and high burnup. A gap that exists between fuel pellets and cladding in fresh state is either reduced or removed in a high burnup state. It was shown that zirconium cladding resists RIA conditions very well in fresh state, however, in high burnup state significant stress and plastic strain occur. The SiC cladding was shown to have many advantages over zirconium alloy. Nevertheless, its lower strength appears to be critical in RIA conditions when cladding needs to withstand exceeding loading after the fuel-cladding gap disappears due to the expansion of the fuel pellet.

English abstract

This paper presents a thermomechanical assessment of various types of fuel cladding during a reactivity-initiated accident (RIA) which is simulated by the finite element analysis program ANSYS. Four cladding concepts are analyzed; one concept considers currently used zirconium alloy and three concepts consider silicon carbide (SiC) material. The SiC claddings consist either of composite material or of a twolayered structure formed of SiC composite and monolithic SiC. Each cladding is analyzed for two states of nuclear fuel: fresh and high burnup. A gap that exists between fuel pellets and cladding in fresh state is either reduced or removed in a high burnup state. It was shown that zirconium cladding resists RIA conditions very well in fresh state, however, in high burnup state significant stress and plastic strain occur. The SiC cladding was shown to have many advantages over zirconium alloy. Nevertheless, its lower strength appears to be critical in RIA conditions when cladding needs to withstand exceeding loading after the fuel-cladding gap disappears due to the expansion of the fuel pellet.

Keywords in English

reactivity-initiated accident, fuel cladding, finite element method

Released

01.01.2018

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Location

New York

ISSN

0029-5639

Volume

189

Number

1

Pages from–to

69–81

Pages count

13

BIBTEX


@article{BUT140340,
  author="Dávid {Halabuk} and Tomáš {Návrat},
  title="Thermomechanical assessment of fuel rod cladding made of zirconium alloy and silicon carbide material during reactivity-initiated accident",
  year="2018",
  volume="189",
  number="1",
  month="January",
  pages="69--81",
  publisher="Taylor & Francis",
  address="New York",
  issn="0029-5639"
}