| Abstract: | To evaluate the effects of fission gas flow and diffusion in the fuel-cladding gap on fuel rod thermal and mechanical behaviors in light water reactor (LWR) fuel rods under operational transient conditions, computer sub-programs which can calculate the gas flow and diffusion have been developed and integrated into the LWR fuel rod performance code BEAF. This integrated code also calculates transient temperature distribution in the fuel-pellet and cladding.The integrated code was applied to an analysis of Inter Ramp Project data, which showed that by taking into account the gas flow and diffusion effects, the calculated cladding damage indices predicted for the failed rods in the ramp test were consistent with iodine-SCC (Stress Corrosion Cracking) failure conditions which were obtained from out-of-reactor pressurized tube experiments with irradiated Zircaloy claddings. This consistency was not seen if the gas flow and diffusion effects were neglected. Evaluation were also made for the BWR 8 × 8 RJ fuel rod temperatures under power ramp conditions. |
