Analysis of stresses acting on the internal and external surfaces of fuel rod of a pressurized water reactor using computational simulation

• Autor(a) principal: LIMA, LEONARDO S.
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: MELO, CAIO, FARIA, DANILO P., BERRETA, JOSE, ABATI, AMANDA, GIOVEDI, CLAUDIA, INTERNATIONAL NUCLEAR ATLANTIC CONFERENCE
• Tipo de documento: Artigo de conferência
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional do IPEN
• Texto Completo: http://repositorio.ipen.br/handle/123456789/30813
• topic: a codes; austenitic steels; boundary conditions; cladding; computerized simulation; finite element method; fuel rods; iron alloys; pwr type reactors; s codes; stresses

During operation of a Pressurized Water Reactor, the cladding of the fuel rod is subjected to various loads, such as: temperature, internal pressure, and external pressure which generate dimensional and geometric variations in the cladding tube. In the fuel rod, at the operating temperature, the internal pressure comes from the initial pre-pressurizing with Helium gas and the release of fission gases by the UO2 pellets during the irradiation. The external pressure is assumed to be the same as that of the coolant. In this paper, it was proposed the study of a mathematical model for computational simulation using the Finite Element Method to calculate and analyze the mechanical stresses acting on the internal and external surfaces of the fuel rod, adopting the normal operating condition, at 0 W of power. The boundary conditions, such as temperature and pressure profile, come from a modified version of a fuel performance code, considering as cladding material an iron-based alloy (austenitic stainless steel). The fuel rod was modeled and simulated using the Solidworks and ANSYS softwares, respectively. The values of the stresses acting on the cladding tube obtained by simulation were compared to the values obtained by analytical calculation. Then, it was checked the consistency of the adopted mathematical model, in order to ensure the reliability of the computational simulation as a tool to evaluate the stresses acting on the internal and external surfaces of the fuel rod under a PWR environment.