[1I13-17] characteristics of fuel cladding

[1I13] The evaluation on the applicability of SiC composite fuel cladding for the Accident Tolerant Fuel to the existing PWR plants

(1)Evaluations of the fuel rod behavior during PWR operational conditions

*Kenichiro Furumoto¹, Seiichi Watanabe¹, Teruhisa Yamamoto¹, Hideyuki Teshima¹, Shinichiro Yamashita², Fumihisa Nagase² (1. MNF, 2. JAEA)

Keywords:accident tolerant fuel, SiC composite, fuel cladding, PWR, fuel rod behavior

Analytical evaluations of the fuel rod behavior during normal and transient operational conditions with silicon carbide (SiC) composite fuel cladding as an accident tolerant fuel (ATF) were performed. A fuel rod analysis code which was introduced material properties of SiC composite were used for the evaluations. Analytical conditions were similar to 17 x 17 type fuel rod for conventional PWR plants. As a result of the evaluations, fuel temperature with SiC composite cladding increased more than the case of fuel rod with Zr-based alloys cladding, due to much smaller creep rate and lower thermal conductivity of irradiated SiC composite than Zr-based alloys, and large stresses would be applied to SiC composite cladding due to contact of pellet and cladding. As countermeasures of such assignments, it was shown that fuel rod design and material development to decrease the fuel temperature were required.