Calculation of the pressure vessel failure fraction of fuel particle of gas turbine high temperature reactor 300C

Aihara, Jun ; Ueta, Shohei   ; Mozumi, Yasuhiro; Sato, Hiroyuki  ; Motohashi, Yoshinobu*; Sawa, Kazuhiro

In high temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs), coated particles are used as fuels. For upgrading HTGR technologies, present SiC coating layer which is used as the 3rd layer could be replaced with ZrC coating layer which have much higher temperature stability in addition to higher resistance to chemical attack by fission product palladium than the SiC coating layer. The ZrC layer could deform plastically at high temperatures. Therefore, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency modified an existing pressure vessel failure fraction calculation code to treat the plastic deformation of the 3rd layer in order to predict failure fraction of ZrC coated particle under irradiation. Finite element method is employed to calculate the stress in each coating layer. The pressure vessel failure fraction of the coated fuel particles under normal operating condition of GTHTR300C is calculated by the modified code. The failure fraction is evaluated as low as 3.510.