Abstract
Thus far, it is well known that the solid pellet of fuel rod in PWR is used in general. But in the solid pellet of the fuel rod, there are two major problems, thermal stress acting on the fuel pellet which is caused by the temperature difference between the surface and the inner parts of the solid fuel pellet and the large temperature discrepancy in the coolant flow itself. That is, one is the temperature nonuniformity within the solid pellet, which will result in the problematic damaging of the solid pellet by an unbalanced thermal stress. The other problem is the large temperature discrepancy between the coolants flowing the neighbor region of the cladding surface and the central region of the channel. To transfer the same amount of heat generated by nuclear fission reaction, the higher temperature of the coolant at the vicinity of the surface of the solid pellet will bring about, inevitably, the increase of the fuel solid surface temperature. With these connections, in the present study, for an annular type of pellet whose respective inner and outer diameters of 9.80 and 14.04 mm, which is designed by KAERI, the flow characteristics through the annular type fuel rod system and the thermal stress acting in the annular fuel pellet are investigated and discussed using numerical analysis.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
M. M. Ei-Wakil, Power plant technology, Mcgraw-Hill Book Co. (1984) 406.
D. Banner and S. Aubry, CHF predictor derived from a 3d thermal-hydraulic code and an advanced statistical method, The 4th Int. Topical Mtg. on Nucl. Thermal Hydraulics, Operations and Safety (1994) Taiwan.
Y. S. Yang, C. H. Shin, T. H. Chun and K. W. Song, Evaluation of a dual annular fuel heat split and temperature distribution, J. Nuclear Sci. and Technology, 46(8) (2009) 836–845.
R. Bujas, Annular fuel element for high temperature reactors, U.S patent no. 3928132 (1975).
M. Kazimir, High performance fuel design for next generation PWRs: Final report, MIT-NFC-PR-082, Center for advanced nuclear energy system (CANES) (2006).
H. F. Martz and J. W. Johnson, Assessing compatibility with reactor safety goals using uncertain risk analysis results with application to core melt, Nucl. Saf. (USA) (25:3) (2009).
M. Dostal, J. Zymak and M. Valach, Physical and numerical difficulties in computer modeling of pellet-cladding contact problems for burned-up fuel, Acta polytechnica, 45(5) (2005).
KAERI/CM-1239/2009, Evaluation of nuclear fuel behaviors using finite element method (2010).
J. R. Welty, R. E. Wilson and C. E. Wicks, Fundamentals of momentum heat and mass transfer, John Wiley & Sons, 2nd ed. (1976) 365.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Recommended by Associate Editor Ji Hwan Jeong
Soon-Bum Kwon received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Kyungpook National University in 1974 and 1980, respectively, and his Ph.D degree from Kyushu University in 1987. He is a Professor at the School of Mechanical Engineering at Kyungpook National University, Korea. His research interests are compressible gas dynamics and non-equilibrium condensation.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kwon, Y.D., Yang, Y.S., Kim, J.S. et al. A study on the flow characteristics in an annular type fuel pellet of PWR. J Mech Sci Technol 27, 257–261 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-012-1205-x
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-012-1205-x