Fuel loading patterns which have a minimum power peak are
economically desirable to allow power reactors to operate at the highest
possible power density and to minimize the possibility of fuel
failure. A computer code called SHUFLE was developed for pressurized
water reactors which shuffles the fuel in search of...
This report presents a refined method for the calculation of fuel centerline temperatures and the linear-heat-rating-to-incipient melting, ' Q'[subscript m], of mixed-oxide fuel typical of that to be used in the Fast Flux Test Facility and in Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactors. Of primary concern are the effects of the...
Large digital computer reactor fuel performance codes
perform repeated calculations of temperature profiles
during transients. The thermal response is required to
calculate the mechanical behavior. This mechanical
response in turn feeds back to the thermal calculations
through mechanisms such as fuel swelling or shrinking,
causing changes in the fuel-clad gap...
The establishment of any thermal model of reactor fuel
requires a thorough understanding of the behavior of the
thermal conductivity. This is especially true in the case
of sphere pac fuels where the conductivity is a function
of many variables beyond those normally affecting conventional
fuels. One of these variables,...
The use of advanced concepts can make the nuclear fuel
cycle more efficient by allowing pins to be operated at
high powers and to higher burnups. Among the more
promising concepts in advanced fuels is sphere pac fuel.
In a first attempt to bring together models describing
individual phenomena, the...
The design, development, and utilization of a direct shear test
apparatus is presented in this thesis. The effectiveness of the
device for determining the friction angle stress state parameter is
studied. Two materials, alumina and uranium dioxide, were tested.
Alumina microspheres were employed in the initial experiments
to simulate the...
A large, multi-year experimental program has been conducted to develop a strain gaging program for application to the flow testing of prototypic, plate-type fuel for high performance research reactors. This test program has resulted in the selection of appropriate strain gage construction, adhesives, and protective coatings to allow the
acquisition...
A study has been made to investigate the fuel-cladding
mechanical interaction (FCMI) in sphere pac fuels.
An FCMI simulation has been constructed using the JVG
Apparatus. This model has been used to investigate the
mechanical interaction between a sphere pac bed and a
cladding wall in terms of the cladding...
The Oregon State University (OSU), Hydro Mechanical Fuel test Facility (HMFTF) is designed to hydro-mechanically test prototypical plate type fuel. OSU's fuel test program is a part of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), formerly known as the Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactor program. One of the GTRI's...
High-energy delayed γ-rays from photofission were demonstrated to be signatures for detection and identification of special nuclear materials. Such γ-rays were measured in between linac pulses using independent data acquisition systems. A list-mode system was developed to measure low-energy delayed γ-rays after irradiation. Photofission product yields of ²³⁸U and ²³⁹Pu...
In order to properly model the temperature distribution of a nuclear fuel pin, the thermal conductivity
of the fuel must be known. For sphere pac fuel, the
modeling of the conductivity is complicated due to the
fact that the fuel is a collection of spheres in a random packed bed....
Because of the high cost of fuel for nuclear reactors, fuel cycle
costs must be predicted accurately.
This leads to the high cost computer computations and a search for cheaper yet still accurate
methods. For this paper we have chosen to study an alternate
method for calculating thermal neutron cell...
This study focuses on the development of a methodology
to evaluate safeguardability of various processes in the
nuclear fuel cycle.
National and international implementation of safeguards
systems has been investigated. It was concluded that
proliferation is purely a political question that,
hopefully, can be prevented by international norms and
diplomacy;...
Several fuels are being investigated for fast breeder reactor
applications. One promising concept is sphere-pac mixed carbide
fuel. As a part of the development of this fuel concept it is
necessary to determine the behavior of the irradiated fuel for safe
and reliable operation on a sound economic basis. It...
Gadolinium is an important element to the Nuclear Fuel Industry. Two
of the seven naturally occurring isotopes of gadolinium have very large
absorption cross sections for thermal neutrons. The isotopes of
¹⁵⁵
Gd
and
¹⁵⁷ Gd readily absorb thermal neutrons and transmute to
¹⁵⁶
Gd and
¹⁵⁸
Gd which are...
The effect of gadolinia particles on the assembly criticality
of a light water reactor was investigated using two 2-group
models. The particle effect was calculated by comparing the
criticalities of two fuel assemblies, each containing one
gadolinia-poisoned rod. For purposes of comparison, both rods
contained an equal quantity of gadolinia,...
Current research on the topic of advanced reactor fuel types include the use of ultrahigh density Uranium-Molybdenum fuels, towards their use in high-performance research reactors. These reactors operate with high power densities, and the increased cooling requirements therefore place high relevance on the fluid-structure interaction with these fuel elements; therefore...
Through a joint effort by the Swiss Federal
Institute for Reactor Research and Oregon State
University, the fuels modeling code SPECKLE is being
developed to model sphere-pac mixed carbide nuclear fuel.
Major parameters, such as fission gas release, fuel
restructuring phenomena, and the temperature and porosity
distributions in the fuel...
Oxide growth is a common phenomenon on aluminum alloy cladding surfaces in nuclear research and test reactors. Without better understanding of oxide growth, excessive oxide build up on the cladding surface reduces heat transfer capability from fuel to coolant and causes safety concerns due to the potential cladding rupture or...
Interest in increased fuel supply stability has driven an investigation into possible alternate fuel for use in the WWR-SM research reactor at the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Uzbekistan. The WWR-SM is a high-power, pool-type research reactor currently utilizing IRT-4M fuel made by a single Russian supplier. A candidate for...
The Boltzmann transport equation derived in the Self-Adjoint Angular Flux (SAAF) formulation is applied to simulate phonon transport. The neutron transport code Rattlesnake is leveraged in this fashion, slightly modi ed to accept input from variables consistent with phonon transport simulations. Several benchmark problems are modeled to assess the potential...
A model is developed that allows the prediction of the stress-strain
distribution in a mixed carbide sphere pac fuel pin during
irradiation. The model is coupled with a previously developed model
for the thermal behavior of the pin. The one-dimensional (radial at
various axial locations) solution is for quasi-steady pin...
A model has been developed to predict the long-term
oxidation rate of Zircaloy-4 for ex-reactor (autoclave) and
in-reactor (PWR) environments and operating conditions. A
computer program has been written to solve the oxygen
diffusion equation by employing a fully implicit finite
difference method for a one dimensional cylindrical
geometry. The...
In order to address the energy needs of developing countries and remote communities, Oregon State University has proposed the Multi-Application Small Light Water Reactor (MASLWR) design. In order to achieve five years of operation without refueling, use of 8% enriched fuel is necessary.
This dissertation is focused on core design...
With the advent of next generation reactor systems and new fuel designs, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has identified the need for the resumption of transient testing of nuclear fuels. The DOE has decided that the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is best suited...
As computational power increases, so does the desire to use fluid-structure interaction (FSI) software to design complex systems and components such as fuel plates. Presently, an effort is underway to support the design and qualification of a new nuclear fuel material which is intended for applications in select, plate-type, research...
To utilize energy resources as efficiently as possible has
become a necessity today. The purpose of this study is to see
how this can be done by extending burnup in a light water reactor.
Specifically, an in-out refueling scheme might extract the maximum
energy from nuclear fuel during its redidence...
Lattice bum-up calculations in thermal reactors are complicated by the necessity
for use of transport theory to represent fuel rods, control rods, and burnable absorbers,
by many time-dependent variables which must be considered in the analysis, and by
geometric complexity which introduces time-dependent, spatial-spectral variations.
Representation of lattice structure in...
A transient code (TFETC) for calculating the temperature
distribution throughout the radial and axial positions of a
thermionic fuel element (TFE) has been successfully developed.
It accommodates the variations of temperatures, thermal power,
electrical power, voltage, and current density throughout the
TFE as a function of time as well as...