Analysis of the secondary stress in the fuel pin cladding due to the swelling gradient through the direction of its thickness

Uwaba, Tomoyuki ; not registered  ; not registered

In the fast reactor the swelling of the fuel cladding occur due to the irradiation. Under the irradiation, the temperature gradient of the cladding through the direction of its thickness causes the swelling gradient and this will cause the secondary stress. In this study, we analyzed this secondary stress using the finite element model of the irradiation induced deformation of the cladding by FINAS code. The result of this analysis is summarized as follows. (1)The secondary stress is mainly caused by the gradient of the incubation period of the swelling, The secondary stress becomes very small at the end of irradiation due to the relieving of the stress by the irradiation creep deformation accelerated by the swelling. (2)The calculated maximum stress including the secondary stress under the irradiation is compared with the design value of the ultimate tensile strength for PNC316 for trial. The calculated value are lower than the design value. (3)The effect of the swelling accelerated by the stress is analyzed using the correlation between the swelling and the stress. The result shows that the increasing of the secondary stress due to the acceleration of the swelling is very small because the irradiation creep deformation relieves the stress more effectively by the acceleration of the irradiation creep rate due to the swelling.