A Study on the fracture pattern change of high-burnup fuel cladding failed by pellet-cladding mechanical interaction failure under reactivity-initiated accident conditions

Li, F.; 三原 武; 宇田川 豊

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 11 Pages, 2024/00

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2024.2313553

In a part of the reactivity-initiated accident (RIA) simulated tests on high-burnup fuels performed at the Nuclear Safety Research Reactor, the fuel failure caused by pellet-cladding mechanical interaction (PCMI) led to splitting into upper- and lower-part pieces or even fragmentation of the cladding tube. A massive release of fuel fragments accompanied this fracture pattern change from previously known axial cracks and thus identified as a potential concern in safety evaluation regarding core coolability. Dedicated out-of-pile mechanical tests were performed with unirradiated Zircaloy-4 cladding specimens to clarify the fracture pattern change conditions. The specimens were pre-hydrided and subjected to loading with axial-to-hoop strain ratios of 0.5-1.25, simulating the effects of hydrogen embrittlement and pellet-cladding mechanical bonding of high-burnup fuels, respectively. The results indicate that higher biaxiality of the loading and lower ductility (failure strain level) assist the fracture pattern change. This study proposes a conservative criterion that a PCMI failure splits the cladding tube into more than two pieces when strain ratio is greater than 0.75 and a concurrent hoop strain 1.7% at the failure instant.

Evaluation of anisotropic elastic and plastic parameters of Zircaloy-4 fuel cladding from biaxial stress test data and their application to a fracture mechanics analysis

Li, F.; 三原 武; 宇田川 豊

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 59(12), p.1455 - 1464, 2022/12

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2022.2062474

The mechanical properties of fuel cladding near the elastic limit are essential in considering its failure limit during a pellet-cladding mechanical interaction phase under reactivity-initiated accident (RIA) conditions. The mechanical properties of a Zircaloy-4 cladding tube, such as orthotropic elasticity and anisotropic constants for Hill's plasticity law, were evaluated based on the biaxial stress test data, focusing on the equivalent plastic strain up to ~2.5%. Samples with various fabrication conditions, such as cold-worked, recrystallized, and stress relieved after cold-work with Q-factors of 2, 3, and 4 were investigated. The cold worked samples and recrystallized samples showed high yield stress and Young's modulus, respectively. The evaluated mechanical properties of the stress relieved samples revealed a limited impact of Q-factors on mechanical behavior, including their anisotropic feature. The derived mechanical properties were applied to evaluate the fracture mechanics parameter, J-integral, based on failure limit data from biaxial-expansion-due-to-compression tests on precracked tubes. This evaluation produced systematically lower J-integral values of the stress relieved tube than previously evaluated based on the failure limit data from in-pile RIA-simulated tests.

Simulation of the effect of radially oriented hydride precipitates on failure limit of high-burnup BWR fuel cladding under PCMI loading

谷口 良徳; 三原 武; 宇田川 豊

Proceedings of TopFuel 2021 (Internet), 10 Pages, 2021/10

Scattering of hydride precipitates in a fuel cladding tube was simply modeled by mapping of multiple cracks in finite element system based on the image-processed hydride morphologies observed in post-test cladding samples and the mechanical interactions of these cracks were simulated by damage mechanics calculation. This is a part of ongoing efforts to analyze the effect of the radially oriented hydride precipitates in the cladding tube on the fuel-failure limit observed in Test OS-1: a reactivity-initiated accident (RIA)-simulated test on the BWR fuel with additives irradiated to 64 GWd/tU, which resulted in a fuel failure with the lowest failure limit among the tests ever performed at the NSRR for high burnup BWR rods. The LS-1 test fuel rod, with similar burnup to the OS-1 rod, was selected as another RIA-simulated test rod to be compared with. Sensitivity was examined for damage model parameters, which dominate strain level at which a finite element becomes softened and finally loses its load-carrying capacity, and two sets of plasticity model parameters calibrated for irradiated and unirradiated materials. In the calculation, large stress concentration occurred in the regions between the tips of two adjacent cracks, and one pair of such cracks, typically one of the longest radial cracks existing in the outer periphery of the cladding, then linked to form a longer crack. The simulated macroscopic circumferential strain at failure of the OS-1 cladding model was lower than that of the LS-1 cladding model by about 40% or more. Limited sensitivity of the damage and plasticity model parameters, observed for the investigated range, suggests that the reduction of failure strain primarily reflects the difference in crack distributions between the two simulated rods. The results support the interpretation that the radially oriented hydrides contributed to the low PCMI-failure limit observed in Test OS-1.

Effects of pre-crack depth and hydrogen absorption on the failure strain of Zircaloy-4 cladding tubes under biaxial strain conditions

Li, F.; 三原 武; 宇田川 豊; 天谷 政樹

Proceedings of 2020 International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE 2020) (Internet), 7 Pages, 2020/08

https://doi.org/10.1115/ICONE2020-16738

Fuel cladding may be subjected to biaxial tensile stress in axial and hoop directions during pellet-cladding mechanical interaction (PCMI) of a reactivity-initiated accident (RIA). Incipient crack in the hydride rim assisted by the scattered hydrides in the metal phase may lead to failure of the cladding at small hoop strain level during PCMI. To get insight of such phenomenon, biaxial-EDC tests under axial to hoop strain ratios ranging from 0 to 1 were performed with pre-cracked (outer surface) and uniformly hydrided Zircaloy-4 cladding tube samples with final heat-treatment status of cold worked (CW), stress relieved (SR) and Recrystallized (RX). Results showed dependencies of failure hoop strain on pre-crack depth, strain ratio, hydrogen content and final heat-treatment status on fabrication, but no apparent dependencies were observed on the distribution pattern of hydrides (with similar hydrogen contents and hydrides predominantly precipitated in hoop direction) and the heat-treatment process for hydrogen charging. J integral at failure seems to be available to unify the effect of pre-crack depth.

The Effect of base irradiation on failure behaviors of UO and chromia-alumina additive fuels under simulated reactivity-initiated accidents; A Comparative analysis with FEMAXI-8

宇田川 豊; 三原 武; 谷口 良徳; 垣内 一雄; 天谷 政樹

Annals of Nuclear Energy, 139, p.107268_1 - 107268_9, 2020/05

AA2019-0372.pdf:0.81MB

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2019.107268

This paper reports a computer-code analysis on the base-irradiation behavior of the chromia-and-alumina-doped BWR rod irradiated to 64 GWd/t in Oskarshamn-3, Sweden, and subjected to the reactivity-initiated-accident (RIA) test OS-1, which resulted in a fuel failure due to pellet-cladding mechanical interaction (PCMI) at the lowest fuel-enthalpy increase in all the BWR tests ever performed. The inverse calculation which utilized post-irradiation examination data as its constraint conditions revealed that the OS-1 rod had very likely experienced more intense PCMI loading due to higher swelling rate during base irradiation than other BWR rods subjected to previous RIA tests and thus had been prone to experience enhanced radial-hydride formation. The significant difference in the cladding hoop-stress more than 50 MPa discriminates the OS-1 rod from other BWR rods and supports the interpretation that enhanced radial-hydrides formation differentiated the PCMI-failure behavior observed in the test OS-1 from the previous BWR-fuel tests.

Behavior of LWR fuels with additives under reactivity-initiated accident conditions

三原 武; 宇田川 豊; 天谷 政樹; 谷口 良徳; 垣内 一雄

Proceedings of International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference / Light Water Reactor Fuel Performance Conference (Global/Top Fuel 2019) (USB Flash Drive), p.544 - 550, 2019/09

In order to assess effects of additives for fuel pellet on the fuel behavior during a reactivity-initiated accident (RIA), fuels with additives irradiated in commercial light water reactors (LWRs) in Europe up to high burnup were subjected to pulse-irradiation experiments in Nuclear Safety Research Reactor (NSRR) of Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA). Two tests were performed: test LS-4 with chromia-doped UO and Zry-2 cladding with liner and test OS-1 with ADOPT (chromia-and-alumina-doped UO) pellet and Zry-2 cladding with liner. The test fuel rod of LS-4 did not fail. The test fuel rod of OS-1 was considered to be failed by hydride-assisted pellet-cladding mechanical interaction (PCMI). The fuel failure limit in OS-1 was the lowest among the test results ever obtained at the NSRR in similar burnup range. The morphology of the hydrides precipitated in the fuel cladding of OS-1 was investigated by metallography and compared with previous results obtained in JAEA in connection focusing fuel failure limit. It was suggested that the observed lower limit of fuel failure was related to the amount and length of the hydride precipitated along the radial direction of cladding.

Fracture behavior of recrystallized and stress-relieved Zircaloy-4 cladding under biaxial stress conditions

三原 武; 宇田川 豊; 天谷 政樹

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 56(8), p.724 - 730, 2019/08

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2019.1621783

Pellet-cladding mechanical interaction (PCMI) under reactivity-initiated accident conditions may lead to failure of high-burnup fuel rods. Zircaloy cladding tubes are subjected to biaxial stress states induced by PCMI loading. This type of stress state, specific to PCMI, presumably makes the tubes more susceptible to failure. To clarify the influence of the anisotropic mechanical properties of Zircaloy cladding tubes on their fracture behavior under biaxial stress conditions, biaxial tensile tests were performed, and the measured stresses and strains were converted to reduced parameters such as equivalent strain, equivalent stress, and stress triaxiality by using the anisotropic constants of the Hill yield function derived in our previous study. The minimum fracture strains for recrystallized (RX) and stress-relieved (SR) specimens were located where the stress ratio of axial to circumferential is 0.75 in the measured range. The equivalent plastic fracture strains tended to decrease monotonously with increasing stress triaxiality, which is a typical trend observed in ductile fracture, in the range of 0.65-0.78 for both specimens. In the case of SR specimens, however, the analysis with stress triaxiality did not reduce the fracture strains well to a single trend curve, showing that the anisotropic constants used in the present work or Hill yield function itself is not enough to describe the whole anisotropy involved in the fracture process of SR material.

Behaviors of high-burnup LWR fuels with improved materials under design-basis accident conditions

天谷 政樹; 宇田川 豊; 成川 隆文; 三原 武; 谷口 良徳

Proceedings of Annual Topical Meeting on Reactor Fuel Performance (TopFuel 2018) (Internet), 10 Pages, 2018/10

Fuels for light water reactors (LWRs) which consist of improved cladding materials and pellets have been developed by utilities and fuel vendors to acquire better fuel performance even in the high burnup region and also raise the safety level of current nuclear power plants to a higher one. In order to evaluate adequacy of the present regulatory criteria in Japan and safety margins regarding the fuel with improved materials, Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) has conducted ALPS-II program sponsored by Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), Japan. In this program, the tests simulating a reactivity-initiated accident (RIA) and a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) have been performed on the high burnup advanced fuels irradiated in commercial PWR or BWR in Europe. This paper presents recent results obtained in this program with respect to RIA, and main results of LOCA experiments, which have been obtained in the ALPS-II program, are summarized.

Behavior of high-burnup advanced LWR fuels under design-basis accident conditions

天谷 政樹; 宇田川 豊; 成川 隆文; 三原 武; 谷口 良徳

Proceedings of 2017 Water Reactor Fuel Performance Meeting (WRFPM 2017) (USB Flash Drive), 10 Pages, 2017/09

JAEA has conducted a research program called ALPS-II program for advanced fuels of LWRs. In this program, the tests simulating a RIA and a LOCA have been performed on the high burnup advanced fuels irradiated in European commercial reactors. The failure limits of the high-burnup advanced fuels under RIA conditions have been obtained by the pulse irradiation tests at the NSRR in JAEA. The information about pellet fragmentation etc. during the pulse irradiations was also obtained from post-test examinations on the test rods after the pulse irradiation tests. As for the simulated LOCA test, integral thermal shock tests and high-temperature oxidation tests have been performed at the RFEF in JAEA. The fracture limits under LOCA and post-LOCA conditions etc. of the high-burnup advanced fuel cladding have been investigated, and it was found that in terms of these materials the fracture boundaries do not decrease and the oxidation does not significantly accelerate in the burnup level examined.

Improved-EDC tests on the Zircaloy-4 cladding tube with an outer surface pre-crack

篠崎 崇*; 宇田川 豊; 三原 武; 杉山 智之; 天谷 政樹

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 53(9), p.1426 - 1434, 2016/09

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2015.1123658

In order to investigate the failure behavior of fuel cladding under a reactivity-initiated accident (RIA) condition, biaxial stress tests on unirradiated Zircaloy-4 cladding tube with an outer surface pre-crack were carried out under room temperature conditions by using an improved Expansion-Due-to-Compression (improved-EDC) test method which was developed by Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA). The specimens with an outer surface pre-crack were prepared by using RAG (Rolling After Grooving) method. In each test, a constant longitudinal tensile load of 0, 5.0 or 10.0 kN was applied along the axial direction of specimen, respectively. All specimens failed during the tests, and the morphology at the failure opening of the specimens was similar to that observed in the result of post-irradiation examinations of high burnup fuel which failed during a pulse irradiation experiment. The longitudinal strain () at failure clearly increased with increasing longitudinal tensile loads and the circumferential strain () at failure significantly decreased in the case of 5.0 and 10.0 kN tests, compared with the case of 0 kN tests. It is considered that the data obtained in this study can be used as a fundamental basis for quantifying the failure criteria of fuel cladding under a biaxial stress state.