Suggestion of Simple Rod Internal Pressure and Free Void Volume Correlations in Spent Fuel Rod

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

A rod internal pressure increased by fission gas release is major factor that causes degradation during dry storage of spent fuel. Because rod internal pressure is greatly affected by fuel design, operation power history, it is essential to perform complex calculation using performance code to accurately predict rod internal pressure as function of burnup. However, because it is difficult to apply a complex method into dry storage design and to determine rod internal pressure based on conservative way this study presents a simple correlation that can predict an approximate rod internal pressure as function of burnup For the development of simple correlation, rod internal pressure and fuel rod void volume data measured through about 400 PIE (Post Irradiation Examination) data were used. The developed simple correlation can cover various fuel rod arrays, discharged fuel average burnup, operation history, cladding type, burnup range, and information on Westinghouse type fuel rods such as Spain ENUSA, USA EPRI/ANL/ORNL/PNNL, WEC, etc. In this paper, the data of simple correlation determination is briefly introduced, and the data analysis process and results are summarized. Two correlations that can conservatively determine rod internal pressure and free void volume in fuel rod according to fuel rod average burnup were presented, and the effect of initial He fill pressure was evaluated. In particular, the results of Post Irradiation Examination for 46 fuel rods conducted in Korea are also included, so it is expected that newly presented correlations can be used easily in various ways in the domestic research, industry, and academia.