a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Received 10 September 2009
Received in revised form
13 November 2009
Accepted 10 December 2009
a b s t r a c t
The burnup-dependent grid-to-rod gap combined with the uid-induced vibration may generate grid-torod fretting wear-induced fuel failure for some fuel assemblies in a certain burnup range. The systematic
grid-to-rod fretting wear-induced fuel failure occurred at the 1616 Korean Optimized Fuel Assembly
loaded in the 2-loop Westinghouse type plant in Korea. Prior to various tests and some measurements
for investigating its root causes, they were assumed to be self-excited fuel assembly vibration caused
by hydraulic-unbalanced mixing vane design, excessive cross-ow between fuel assemblies during the
transition core, or relatively large grid-to-rod gap formation during in-reactor irradiation that may be
caused by excessive initial spring force loss of fresh fuel during a fuel rod loading process and/or a fuel
assembly transport to a plant and by excessive cladding creep-down. A wide spectrum of tests and
some measurements were performed to nd out root cause(s) of the grid-to-rod fretting wear-induced
fuel failure. Based on these tests and measurements, it is concluded that the self-excited fuel assembly
vibration is the primary root cause, while excessive initial spring force loss during the fuel rod loading
process is the second major root cause.
2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Nowadays a nuclear renaissance is under way due to global climate problem and limited energy source of fossil fuel. Considering
that public perception of nuclear power as safe, efcient and reliable is more important than ever, nuclear fuel reliability is essential
to sustain the nuclear renaissance. In the world various nuclear
fuels have been designed and developed to be more competitive,
but some fuels have had brief commercial lives because of designrelated systematic fuel failure. In the 1970s through 1980s, Korea
had imported nuclear fuel assemblies since Korea did not have any
fuel design and fabrication technology. Korea Nuclear Fuel (KNF)
was established in 1982 to localize nuclear fuel technology, based
on various technologies transferred from the former Siemens/KWU,
the former Combustion Engineering, and Westinghouse Electric
Company. KNF started to supply rstly localized PWR and PHWR
fuels from 1989 and 1997, respectively.
The rstly localized PWR fuels supplied by KNF are 1414,
1616 and 1717 Korean Optimized Fuel Assemblies (KOFAs).
Abbreviations: KNF, Korea Nuclear Fuel; PWR, pressurized water reactor; PHWR,
pressurized heavy water reactor; KOFA, Korean Optimized Fuel Assembly; GTRFW,
grid-to-rod fretting wear; FIV, uid-induced vibration; FR, fuel rod; FA, fuel assembly.
Tel.: +82 11 9805 1447; fax: +82 54 770 2873.
E-mail address: ktkim@dongguk.ac.kr.
0029-5493/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.nucengdes.2009.12.014
During the transition core with a mixed fuel loading having the
imported fuel assembly and the 1616KOFA in the 2-loop Westinghouse type plant in Korea, however, the systematic grid-to-rod
fretting wear-induced fuel failure occurred at the 1616KOFA (Kim,
1993), as shown in Fig. 1. The key reactor core operating conditions of the 2-loop plant and the 1616KOFA design parameters
are given in Table 1. From Fig. 1, it can be seen that the rst leak
signal was detected at a twice-burned fuel assembly (FA) at about
90 days after startup (22,000 MWD/MTU). Based on the ultrasonic
tests, almost one hundred KOFA fuel rods (FRs) were found to be
leaking due to the grid-to-rod fretting wear (GTRFW). The leak rods
are located generally around the periphery of FA, as shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 3 shows perforated fretting wear congurations of failed KOFA
fuel rods. From this gure, the spring and dimple marks on the fuel
rod surfaces are clearly identied.
To investigate root cause(s) of 1616KOFA fuel failures,
other fuel designs generating fretting wear-induced fuel failures
(Kennard et al., 1995; Donovan, 2007) were reviewed in detail. The
fretting wear-induced fuel failures over the world have occurred
with various fuel designs that include 1717 Vantage5H of Westinghouse Electric Company, 1818 Konvoi of the former Siemens
and 1616 Guardian of the former Combustion Engineering, etc.
It is reported that the GTRWF would occur mainly at the mid-grid
positions and the rst leak signals appear in a wide range of operating time covering the 1st through 3rd cycle (Kennard et al., 1995).
Based on this evaluation of root causes of the GTRFW occurring
in the world, probable root causes of the GTRFW observed in the
Fig. 1. The ratio of Xe-133/Xe-135 versus reactor operation time for the 1616KOFA.
Table 1
Reactor core and fuel assembly design parameters for the 1616KOFA.
Design parameters
Values
287.7 C
324.7 C
155.1 bar
4.80 m/s
175.7 W/cm
75 GPM
9.50 mm
12.32 mm
8 (Inconel)
522 mm
Point contact
>12 N
360 days
757
758
Fig. 5. Initial spring force distributions of the 1616KOFA before and after the FR
loading with a FR loading speed of 0.33 m/s.
in the operating ow range, while the data obtained from the other
three tests may show whether or not excessive grid-to-rod gaps will
form in a certain burnup range. It is noteworthy that the FR vibration caused by the grid-to-rod gap formation will become more
vigorous when combined with the FA vibration. On the other hand,
the extent of cross-ow between FAs was reviewed to evaluate the
impact of the cross-ow on the GTRFW of 1616KOFA.
Fig. 6. Initial spring force distributions of the 1616KOFA before and after the FR
loading with a FR loading speed of 0.18 m/s.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
0.0
0.7
0.5
0.4
0.5
0.1
0.3
0.4
0.0
0.0
0.7
0.2
0.0
0.1
0.1
0.2
Mean value
0.263
Standard deviation
0.245
759
Table 3
Cross-ow data in transition cores of various plants.
Plant
Difference in
pressure loss
coefcient (%)
Maximum
cross-ow
(m/s)
46
40
41
0.38
0.30
0.27
0.36
These additional spring force loss data were measured by the following three steps: Firstly, spring force loss of each spacer grid for
two FAs during the fuel rod loading process was obtained by measuring before and after the FR loading, as explained in Section 2.2.
It should be noted that one FA generates eight sets of spring force
data from eight spacer grid assemblies. Therefore, 16 sets of residual spring force data just before the FA transportation to the Kori-2
unit. Secondly, two FAs were transported from the manufacturing
facility to the Kori-2 unit and then came back to the manufacturing
facility. Finally, data of additional spring force occurring during the
transportation for 16 spacer grid assemblies were obtained by measuring residual spring forces after unloading FRs from each spacer
grid assembly. From Table 2, it can be seen that the additional spring
force loss occurred during the FA transport is considered very small,
comparing with the initial spring force loss during the FR loading
process.
2.4. Cladding creep-down measurements
It is known that the larger creep-down generates the larger gridto-rod gap, which will subsequently cause the FR vibration to be
more vigorous. In order to investigate the impact of cladding materials on the cladding creep-down, cladding creep-down data were
measured for two kinds of Zry-4 cladding materials under unirradiated and irradiated conditions. Fig. 7 shows thermal cladding
creep data under unirradiated conditions and Fig. 8 shows the axial
cladding creep-down proles for twice-burned FAs with cladding
materials A and B, respectively. From these gures, it can be seen
that there exists only a slight difference in the irradiated cladding
creep-down data between cladding materials A and B, even though
Fig. 9. Flow paths generated by the hydraulic-balanced mixing vane pattern of the
PLUS7 fuel (Kim and Suh, 2009).
760
Table 4
Statistical information on initial spring force of the 1616KOFA.
Phase
16.750 N (0.840 N)
14.405 N
14.142 N
2.345 N (1.972 N)
0.263 N (0.245 N)
14.630 N
9.430 N
8.700 N
(1)
where fres (t) is the residual spring force at t = t, COT the spring constant at an operating temperature, and res (t) the residual elastic
spring deection at t = t.
Then, the residual elastic deection at t = t, res (t), can be derived
by the following formula:
res (t) = o P (t) T (t) CR (t) IR (t) rex (t)
(2)
where o is the initial elastic spring deection at room temperature, P (t) the accumulated elastic cladding deection caused by the
coolant overpressure from t = 0 to t = t, T (t) the accumulated thermal expansion difference between spacer grid and cladding from
t = 0 to t = t, CR (t) the accumulated cladding creep-down from t = 0
to t = t, IR (t) the accumulated spacer grid irradiation growth from
t = 0 to t = t, and rex (t) is the accumulated elastic spring deection
loss due to spring force relaxation from t = 0 to t = t.
The value of o is determined by unstrained spring height, fuel
rod pitch and initial cladding diameter, while the values of P (t),
T (t), CR (t), IR (t) and rex (t) are calculated with the use of reactor operating conditions and relevant fuel design data. A schematic
diagram of elastic spring deection as a function of burnup may
be drawn, as shown in Fig. 10. As an illustration for grid-to-rod
gap formation, changes in the residual elastic spring deections,
which were calculated by the GRIDFORCE program, are shown in
Figs. 11 and 12. From these gures, it can be said that the initial
spring force of 12 N does not generate a grid-to-rod gap at any
spacer grids at the FA burnup of 22 MWD/kgU, whereas that of 8 N
generates grid-to-rod gaps at the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th spacer grids.
With the use of Eq. (1), changes in the residual spring forces were
calculated for initial spring forces of 8, 12 and 18 N as a function
of burnup, as shown in Fig. 13. From this gure, it is found that
the grid-to-rod gap starts to form at 18, 24 and 28 MWD/kgU for
the initial spring forces of 8, 12 and 18 N, respectively. It is obvious
that the lower initial spring force generates the larger grid-to-rod
gap at the same burnup or the earlier grid-to-rod gap. Therefore,
one can say that some grid cells with the initial spring force less
than 12 N, the minimum initial spring force required in the design
specication, may be susceptible to the GTRFW-induced fuel fail-
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