Wear test in out-of-core sodium between fuel cladding tube and wire for "JOYO" MK-I

Kano, Shigeki; Nakayama, Koichi; Koakutsu, Toru; not registered; not registered; not registered

The wear mark was observed between fuel cladding tube and adjacent wrapping wire in the fuelassembly irradiated at the "JOYO" MK-I core. It is necessitated that the formation mechanism, formation condition in the core and the effect of wear mark on the integrity of fuel cladding tube are clarified. The out-of-core sodium test was conducted at the Sodium Tachnology Section, O-arai Engineering Center, PNC, to estimate the load condition in the core and grasp the growth of wear mark. The test conditions were as follows: sodium temperature of 550C, cold trap temparatures of 120C and 150C, contact loads of 59 - 885g, sliding frequency of 1 Hz and sliding cycles of 10, 10 and 10. The test results obtained are as follows. (1)The wear depth linearly increases with increasing load and logarithm of sliding cycle, respectively. The growth of wear mark changes from initial wear to steady state wear. (2)The contact load between fuel cladding tube and wrapping wire in "JOYO" MK-I core is estimated as lower than 250g by the analysis using the test results, wear depth values, obtained at the present test. (3)The higher the contact load, the smoother the morphology of wear mark surface was. The increase of hardness was observed on the sliding surface, but the compositional and crystalline structure change and the crack caused by fatigue were not observed. (4)The sliding resistance between fuel cladding tube and wrapping wire incrementally increases with sliding and, there after, it is apt to be constant at ca. 510 sliding cycles. (5)There is not significant difference in the wear depth and the sliding reststance, respectively, between at cold trap temperatures of 120C and 150C. (6)The estimation of the growth of wear mark until the JOYO MK-I No.6 cycle by the present test results shows that the growth of wear depth is slight even after No.6 cycle.