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Nemoto, Yoshiyuki; Kaji, Yoshiyuki; Ogawa, Chihiro*; Nakashima, Kazuo*; Tojo, Masayuki*
Proceedings of 2017 Water Reactor Fuel Performance Meeting (WRFPM 2017) (USB Flash Drive), 10 Pages, 2017/09
To cope with the hypothetical severe accident in spent fuel pools (SFPs), it is important to understand the high temperature oxidation behavior of the Zirconium claddings exposed in the air or in the atmosphere of air/steam mixture. In this study, oxidation tests on Zircaloy-2 (Zry2) and Zircaloy-4 (Zry4) short samples were conducted in the atmosphere of air - steam mixture, and mixing ratio was varied to evaluate its influence on the oxidation kinetics in the temperature range from 600 to 1100C. From 900 to 1000
C for Zry2, and from 800 to 1000
C for Zry4, oxidation rates appeared higher in air - steam mixture than in dry air or in steam without air. This tendency was appeared more evident in post-breakaway transition phase after fracture of dense oxide layer on the surface of specimens. These results suggest importance of the oxidation model development in consideration of the air - steam mixture environment for the SFP accident analysis.
Amaya, Masaki; Udagawa, Yutaka; Narukawa, Takafumi; Mihara, Takeshi; Taniguchi, Yoshinori
Proceedings of 2017 Water Reactor Fuel Performance Meeting (WRFPM 2017) (USB Flash Drive), 10 Pages, 2017/09
Shirasu, Noriko; Saito, Hiroaki; Yamashita, Shinichiro; Nagase, Fumihisa
Proceedings of 2017 Water Reactor Fuel Performance Meeting (WRFPM 2017) (USB Flash Drive), 8 Pages, 2017/09
Silicon carbide (SiC) is an attractive candidate of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) cladding material because of its high chemical stability, high radiation resistance and low neutron absorption. FEMAXI-ATF has been developed to analysis SiC cladding fuel behaviors. The thermal, mechanical and irradiation property models were implemented to FEMAXI-7, which is a fuel behavior analysis code being developed in JAEA. Fuel rod behavior analysis was performed under typical boiling water reactor (BWR) operating conditions with a model based on a 99 BWR fuel (Step III Type B), in which the cladding material was replaced from Zircaloy to SiC. The SiC cladding shows large swelling by irradiation. It increases the gap size and decreases cladding thermal conductivity. The mechanism of relaxation of stress is also different from the Zircaloy cladding. The experimental data for SiC materials are still insufficient to construct the models, especially for evaluating fracture behavior.
Ishibashi, Ryo*; Tanabe, Shigetada*; Kondo, Takao*; Yamashita, Shinichiro; Nagase, Fumihisa
Proceedings of 2017 Water Reactor Fuel Performance Meeting (WRFPM 2017) (USB Flash Drive), 10 Pages, 2017/09
For improving the corrosion resistance of silicon carbide (SiC) in boiling-water-reactor environments, corrosion-resistant coatings on SiC were evaluated. Due to its hydrogen-generation rate and reaction heat being lower than those of conventional Zircaloy, SiC is expected to be an appropriate material for accident-tolerant fuels. However, there are still many critical issues with the practical application of SiC fuel cladding and fuel channel boxes, one of which is hydrothermal corrosion. Silicon carbide is chemically stable, but silicon oxide formed by oxidation of SiC dissolves in high temperature water. Although the rate of SiC dissolution is very small, the dissolution must be suppressed to comply with regulations for dissolved silica concentration in reactor coolant. In this study, the corrosion behavior of candidate coatings for SiC substrates were evaluated before and after exposure to unirradiated high-purity-water environments.
Kimura, Akihiko*; Yuzawa, Sho*; Sakamoto, Kan*; Hirai, Mutsumi*; Kusagaya, Kazuyuki*; Yamashita, Shinichiro
Proceedings of 2017 Water Reactor Fuel Performance Meeting (WRFPM 2017) (USB Flash Drive), 10 Pages, 2017/09
The effect of Al addition on the PRW weldability of ODS steel is shown with the discussion focusing on the microstructure changes by the welding. The ordinary welding methods including electron beam (EB) welding and tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding were also applied to the SUS430 endcap welding to cladding tube made of FeCrAl-ODS steel. The endcap welded ODS steel tube samples were tensile tested at RT. The EB welded FeCrAl-ODS/SUS430 samples broke in the ODS steel tube, indicating that the weld bond is stronger than the ODS base metal. However, the TIG welded FeCrAl-ODS/SUS430 samples broke at a weld bond. X-ray CT scan analysis was performed for the weld bond, and the bonding strength was correlated with the X-ray CT results in order to assess the feasibility of those welding methods for ATF-ODS steel cladding.
Furumoto, Kenichiro*; Watanabe, Seiichi*; Yamamoto, Teruhisa*; Teshima, Hideyuki*; Yamashita, Shinichiro; Saito, Hiroaki; Shirasu, Noriko
Proceedings of 2017 Water Reactor Fuel Performance Meeting (WRFPM 2017) (USB Flash Drive), 10 Pages, 2017/09
Since 2015, Mitsubishi Nuclear Fuel (MNF) has joined in a Japanese R&D project of ATF founded by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) as a subcontractor to Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) which is the prime contractor to METI. In this program, MNF plans to evaluate an influence of Silicon Carbide (SiC) composite cladding upon fuel rod behavior in current pressurized water reactors (PWR). This paper reports the evaluation result of the applicability of fuel rod with SiC composite cladding for a conventional PWR. For the applicability evaluations of SiC composite to conventional PWR, both of analytical evaluations and out-of-pile tests for SiC composite were conducted. Analytical evaluations were performed by Mitsubishi's own fuel rod design code and the fuel rod behavior evaluation code developed by JAEA. These codes were modified to evaluate the behavior of the fuel rod with SiC composite cladding. As out-of-pile tests, thermal diffusivity measurement and autoclave corrosion test for SiC composite samples were performed. Test apparatus were developed for evaluation of performance of SiC composite under the condition simulated design basis accident (DBA).
Sakamoto, Kan*; Hirai, Mutsumi*; Ukai, Shigeharu*; Kimura, Akihiko*; Yamaji, Akifumi*; Kusagaya, Kazuyuki*; Kondo, Takao*; Yamashita, Shinichiro
Proceedings of 2017 Water Reactor Fuel Performance Meeting (WRFPM 2017) (USB Flash Drive), 7 Pages, 2017/09
This paper will show the overview of current status of development of accident tolerant FeCrAl-ODS fuel claddings for BWRs (boiling water reactors) in the program sponsored and organized by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) of Japan. This program is being carried out to create the technical basis for the practical use of the accident tolerant fuels and the other components in LWRs through multifaceted activities. In the development of FeCrAl-ODS fuel claddings both the experimental and the analytical studies have been performed. The acquisition and accumulation of key material properties of FeCrAl-ODS fuel claddings were conducted by using bar, sheet and tube shaped FeCrAl-ODS materials fabricated in this program to support the evaluations in the analytical studies. A neutron irradiation test was also started in the ORNL High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) to examine the effect of neutron irradiation on the mechanical properties.
Sato, Hisaki*; Takeuchi, Yutaka*; Kakiuchi, Kazuo*; Yamashita, Shinichiro; Nagase, Fumihisa
Proceedings of 2017 Water Reactor Fuel Performance Meeting (WRFPM 2017) (USB Flash Drive), 9 Pages, 2017/09
Since JFY2015, new Japanese national program has been initiated for the purpose of establishing the technical basis to apply ATF for the existing LWRs. SiC is one of ATF candidates material and the comprehensive applicability is being studied in the program, such as fuel rod design, core and plant design, safety evaluation for design basis accident (DBA) and severe accident (SA) as well. As one of the works in the program, the new procedure including fuel rod performance analysis during DBA was developed and the preliminary analysis was conducted. As a result, it was concluded that the typical transient and LOCA behavior between Zircaloy and SiC was not so much different.
Yamaji, Akifumi*; Yamasaki, Daiki*; Okada, Tomoya*; Sakamoto, Kan*; Yamashita, Shinichiro
Proceedings of 2017 Water Reactor Fuel Performance Meeting (WRFPM 2017) (USB Flash Drive), 10 Pages, 2017/09
Features of the accident tolerant fuel performance were evaluated with FEMAXI-7 when the current Zircaloy(Zry) cladding is replaced with FeCrAl-ODS steel cladding (a type of oxide dispersion strengthened steel being developed under the Project on Development of Technical Basis for Safety Improvement at Nuclear Power Plants by Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) of Japan) for BWR 99 type fuel rod. In particular, influences of the creep strain rate and thickness of the ODS cladding on the fuel temperature, fission gas release rate (FGR) and pellet-cladding mechanical interaction (PCMI) are investigated.
Miyahara, Naoya; Miwa, Shuhei; Nakajima, Kunihisa; Osaka, Masahiko
Proceedings of 2017 Water Reactor Fuel Performance Meeting (WRFPM 2017) (USB Flash Drive), 9 Pages, 2017/09
This paper presents the development of a reproductive experimental setup for FP release and transport and an analysis tool considering chemical reaction kinetics for the construction of the FP chemistry database. The performance test of the reproductive experimental setup TeRRa using CsI compounds show that TeRRa can reproduce well a FP chemistry-related behavior such as aerosol formation, growth and deposition behavior. An analytical tool has been developed based on the commercial ANSYS-FLUENT code. Some additional models was added to evaluate detailed FP chemistry during release and transport in this study. A test analysis simulating the CsI heating test in steam atmosphere was carried out to demonstrate the performance of the improved code. The result shows the appropriateness of the additional models.
Yamashita, Shinichiro; Nagase, Fumihisa; Kurata, Masaki; Nozawa, Takashi; Watanabe, Seiichi*; Kirimura, Kazuki*; Kakiuchi, Kazuo*; Kondo, Takao*; Sakamoto, Kan*; Kusagaya, Kazuyuki*; et al.
Proceedings of 2017 Water Reactor Fuel Performance Meeting (WRFPM 2017) (USB Flash Drive), 10 Pages, 2017/09
In Japan, the research and development (R&D) project on accident tolerant fuel and other components (ATFs) of light water reactors (LWRs) has been initiated in 2015 for establishing technical basis of ATFs. The Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) has coordinated and carried out this ATF R&D project in cooperation with power plant providers, fuel venders and universities for making the best use of the experiences, knowledges in commercial uses of zirconium-base alloys (Zircaloy) in LWRs. ATF candidate materials under consideration in the project are FeCrAl steel strengthened by dispersion of fine oxide particles(FeCrAl-ODS) and silicon carbide (SiC) composite, and are expecting to endure severe accident conditions in the reactor core for a longer period of time than the Zircaloy while maintaining or improving fuel performance during normal operations. In this paper, the progresses of the R&D project are reported.
Takano, Sho*; Kusagaya, Kazuyuki*; Goto, Daisuke*; Sakamoto, Kan*; Yamashita, Shinichiro
Proceedings of 2017 Water Reactor Fuel Performance Meeting (WRFPM 2017) (USB Flash Drive), 10 Pages, 2017/09
We focused on one of accident tolerant fuel (ATF) materials, Oxide Dispersion Strengthened Fe-Cr-Al Steel (FeCrAl-ODS). There is a reasonable prospect that FeCrAl-ODS is applied to BWRs, but relatively high neutron absorption should be compensated. To decrease adverse neutron economic impact, thin FeCrAl-ODS cladding was designed, and we evaluated characteristics of a core into which 99 Advanced BWR (ABWR) bundles with thin FeCrAl-ODS claddings were loaded. Thin FeCrAl-ODS water rods and channel boxes were also applied. We confirmed that FeCrAl-ODS core reactivity was sufficient by increasing enrichment of UO
fuel under the limit of 5 wt%. Moreover, some representative FeCrAl-ODS core characteristics were comparable to zircaloy core. We also confirmed that fuel thermal-mechanical behaviors of thin FeCrAl-ODS cladding at normal operation and transient conditions were acceptable. These results led to a conclusion that FeCrAl-ODS was applicable to BWR in the analysis range of this study.