INVESTIGADORES
SOBA Alejandro
artículos
Título:
Model of fracture for the Zry cladding of nuclear fuel rods included in
Autor/es:
SOBA; DENIS
Revista:
NUCLEAR ENGINEERING AND DESIGN
Referencias:
Año: 2008 vol. 238 p. 3292 - 3298
ISSN:
0029-5493
Resumen:
The DIONISIO code describes most of the main phenomena occurring in a fuel rod during
normal operation of a nuclear power reactor. Starting from the irradiation history, the code
predicts the temperature distribution, elastic and plastic stress and strain, creep, swelling
and densification, release of fission gases, caesium and iodine to the internal rod volume,
gas mixing, pressure increase, irradiation growth of the cladding, development of an oxide
layer on its surface and hydrogen uptake, restructuring and grain growth in the pellet.
This work presents the model of Zircaloy fracture included in the code DIONISIO 1.0. The
model of pelletcladding mechanical interaction (PCMI) provides the forces caused by the
solidsolid contact which add to the changing internal pressure and to the constant external
pressure. Besides, the program evaluates the effects of a corrosive atmosphere (stress
corrosion cracking, SCC) internal or external. With these data, the code calculates the JJ
integral around the tip of an initiated crack, and proceeds to analyze, according to the
quantity of corrosive substance dissolved and the cladding stress field, if the crack remains
unchanged, if it grows due to the I-SCC mechanism, or if propagation is ductile, following
the R curve of the material.
Results corresponding to different PHWR and PWR reactors are presented and compared
with code results. In particular, good agreement is obtained in the simulation of MOX
experiments, where the cladding failed due to propagation of cracks originated in SCC.R curve of the material.
Results corresponding to different PHWR and PWR reactors are presented and compared
with code results. In particular, good agreement is obtained in the simulation of MOX
experiments, where the cladding failed due to propagation of cracks originated in SCC.