Study of transient heat transfer in a fuel rod 3D, in a situation of unplanned shutdown of A PWR

• Autor(a) principal: Affonso, Renato Raoni Werneck
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Outros Autores: Martins, Rodolfo Ienny, Sampaio, Paulo Augusto Berquó de, Moreira, Maria de Lourdes, Instituto de Engenharia Nuclear
• Tipo de documento: Artigo de conferência
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional do IEN
• Texto Completo: http://carpedien.ien.gov.br:8080/handle/ien/2368
• topic: INAC 2015; Nuclear reactor; Nuclear waste; Finite Elements Method

The study, in situations involving accidents, of heat transfer in fuel rods is of known importance, since it can be used to predict the temperature limits in designing a nuclear reactor, to assist in making more efficient fuel rods, and to increase the knowledge about the behavior of the reactor’s components, a crucial aspect for safety analysis. This study was conducted using as parameter the fuel rod that has the highest average power in a typical PWR reactor. For this, we developed a program (Fuel_Rod_3D) in Fortran language using the Finite Elements Method (FEM) for the discretization of a fuel rod and coolant channel, in order to study the temperature distribution in both the fuel rod and the coolant channel. Transient parameters were coupled to the heat transfer equations in order to obtain details of the behavior of the rod and the channel, which allows the analysis of the temperature distribution and its change over time. This work aims to present a study case of an accident where there is a lack of energy in the reactor’s coolant pumps and in the diesel engines, resulting in an unplanned shutdown of the reactor. In order to achieve the intended goal, the present work was divided as follows: a short introduction about heat transfer, including the equations concerning the fuel rod and the energy equation in the channel, an explanation about how the verification of the Fuel_Rod_3D program was made, andthe analysis of the results.