• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.1
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• pp.178-187
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• 2021

Dual-cooled annular fuel allows a significant increase in power density while maintaining or improving safety margins. However, the dual-cooled design brings much higher Zircaloy charge in reactor core, which could cause a great threaten of hydrogen explosion during severe accidents. Hence, an innovative fuel combined dual-cooled annular geometry and SiC cladding was proposed for the first time in this study. Capabilities of fuel design and behavior simulation were developed for this new fuel by the upgrade of FROBA-ANNULAR code. Considering characteristics of both SiC cladding and dual-cooled annular geometry, the basic fuel design was proposed and preliminary proved to be feasible. After that, a design optimization study was conducted, and the optimal values of as-fabricated plenum pressure and gas gap sizes were obtained. Finally, the performance simulation of the new fuel was carried out with the full consideration of realistic operation conditions. Results indicate that in addition to possessing advantages of both dual-cooled annular fuel and accident tolerant cladding at the same time, this innovative fuel could overcome the brittle failure issue of SiC induced by pellet-cladding interaction.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.8
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• pp.1629-1635
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• 2017

Reliable prediction of nuclear fuel rod behavior of nuclear power reactors constitutes a basic demand for steady-state calculations, design purposes, and fuel performance assessment. Perfect design of fuel rods as the first barrier against fission product release is very important. Simulation of fuel rod performance with a code or software is one of the fuel rod design steps. In this study, a software program called MARCODE is developed in MATLAB environment that can analyze the temperature distribution, gap conductance value, and fuel and clad displacement in both solid and annular fuel rods. With a comparison of the maximum fuel temperature, fuel average temperature, fuel surface temperature, and gap conductance in solid and annular fuel, the effects of a central hole on the fuel temperature distribution are investigated.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11b
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• pp.2236-2241
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• 2008

The surface heat flux of nuclear fuel rod is the most important factor which can affect safety of reactor and fuel. If fuel rod surface heat flux exceeds the CHF(${\underline{C}}ritical$ ${\underline{H}}eat$ ${\underline{F}}lux$), fuel can be damaged. In case of double cooled annular fuel, which is under developing, contains two coolant channels. Therefore, a generated heat in the fuel pellet can move to inner or outer channel and heat flow direction is decided by both sides heat resistance which varied by dimension and material property change which caused by temperature and irradiation. The new program(called DUO) was developed. For the calculation of surface heat flux, a both sides convection by inner/outer coolant, s gap temperature jump and conduction in the fuel are modeled. Especially, temperature and time dependent fuel dimension and material property change are considered during the iteration. A sample calculation result shows that the DUO program has sufficient performance for annular fuel thermal hydraulics design.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.03b
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• pp.264-267
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• 2008

Dual-cooled fuel with inner and outer flow channel was proposed for high burup, next generation nuclear fuel design. The annular cylinder of dual cooled fuel has higher structural strength compared to the conventional one, but also have concerns about flow induced vibration due to an additional flow of inner channel and the difference of flow velocity in between inner and outer channel. In this study, the dynamic stability of flexible, annular cylinder was evaluated according to the flow variation and compared to the that of the conventional PWR fuel rod. Centrifugal and Coriolis force by the additional flow in the inner channel were added in the dynamic equation of flexible beam in uniform, external, and axial flow. Complex eigenfrequency was calculated by the finite element method. Stability margin of annular cylinder compared to the solid cylinder and change of the dynamic characteristic are presented and discussed as a analysis results.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.197-201
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• 2007

Vibration characteristics of an annular cylindrical fuel rod, which was proposed as a candidate design of fuel's cross section for the ultra-high burnup nuclear fuel, according to the cross-sectional dimensions and the number of supports or the span length were analytically studied. Finite element(FE) modeling for the annular cross sectional fuel was based on the methodology, that have been proven by the test verification, for the conventional PWR nuclear fuel rod. A commercial FEA code, ABAQUS, was used for the FE modeling and analysis. A planar beam element (B21) that uses a linear interpolation was used for the fuel rod and a linear spring element for the spring and dimple of the SG. Natural frequencies and mode shape were calculated according to the preliminary design candidates for the fuel's cross sectional dimension and the number of span. From the analysis results, the design scheme of the annular fuel compatible to the present PWR nuclear reactor core was discussed in terms of the number of supports and fuel's cross section.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.3473-3478
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• 2007

A dual side cooling annular fuel having internal and external coolant channels has many advantages basically due to low fuel temperature and high DNBR margin, which can make a significant increase of core power density possible. So recently a 12x12 square annular fuel array was proposed for the fuel assembly to be reloaded without structural interference with operating reactors of OPR-1000s. Even through the inherent potential of the annular fuel on the high power density, it may be seriously eroded in the case of a severe unbalanced mass flux split to the internal and external channels in standpoint of DNB. Mass flux split is determined pressure drop characteristics between inner and outer channels. The spacer grids binding fuel array influence greatly the pressure drop in outer channels and the mass flux split. As an important factor of DNB behavior, the enthalpy differences at both channel exits were evaluated using the mass flux splits.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.11
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• pp.4084-4094
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• 2022

The Advanced Fuels Campaign Fission Accelerated Steady-state Test (FAST) at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) completed its first irradiation cycle within the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR). The test focused on the irradiation of alloy fuel forms for use in sodium fast reactors. The first cycle of FAST testing was completed and four rodlets were removed for the initial post irradiation examination (PIE). The rodlet design and irradiation conditions were evaluated using Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) for as-run power history and COMSOL for temperature analysis. These rodlets include a set of low burnups (~2.5 % fissions per initial metal atoms [%FIMA]), control rodlets, and a helium-bonded annular rodlet (4.7 %FIMA). Nondestructive PIE has been completed and includes visual inspection, neutron radiography and gamma scanning of the FAST capsules and rodlets. Radiography confirmed the integrity of the experiments, revealed that the annulus in the annular fuel was filled at a modest burnup (4.7 %FIMA), and indicated potential slumping of the cooler rodlets at lower burnup. Precision gamma scanning indicated mostly usual fission product behavior, except for cesium in the He-bonded annular fuel. Future destructive PIE will be necessary to fully interpret the effects of accelerated irradiation on U-Zr metallic fuel behavior.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.1464-1470
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• 2022

This paper presents a high performance burnable absorber named as CIMBA (Cylindrically Inserted and Mechanically Separated Burnable Absorber) for the soluble-boron-free SMR. The CIMBA is the cylindrical gadolinia inserted into the annular fuel pellets. Although the CIMBA utilizes the spatial self-shielding effect of the fuel material, a large reactivity upswing occurs when the gadolinia is depleted. To minimize the reactivity swing of the CIMBA-loaded FA, two approaches were investigated. One is controlling the spatial self-shielding effect of the CIMBA as burnup proceeds by a multi-layered structure of the CIMBA (ML-CIMBA) and the other is the mixed-loading of two different types of CIMBA (MIX-CIMBA). Both approaches show promising performances to minimize the reactivity swing, where the MIX-CIMBA is more preferable due to its simpler fabrication process. In conclusion, the MIX-CIMBA is expected to accelerate the commercialization of the CIMBA and can be used to achieve an optimal soluble-boron-free SMR core design.

• Advances in aircraft and spacecraft science
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.537-551
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• 2022

The rapid decrease of fossil fuel resources and increase of environmental pollution caused by aviation industries have become a severe issue which leads to an increase in the greenhouse effect. The use of biofuel becomes an option to alleviate issues related to unrenewable resources. This study presents a computational simulation of the biofuel combustion characteristics of various alternative fuels in an annular combustion chamber designed for training aircraft. The biofuels used in this study are Sorghum Oil Methyl Ester (SOME), Spirulina Platensis Algae (SPA) and Camelina Hydrotreated Esters and Fatty Acids (CHEFA). Meanwhile, Jet-A is used as a baseline fuel. The fuel properties and combustion characteristics are being investigated and analysed. The results are presented in terms of temperature and pressure profiles in addition to the formation of NOx and soot generated from the combustion chamber. Results obtained show that CHEFA fuel is the most recommended biofuel among all four tested fuels as it is being found that it burns with 37.6% lower temperature, 15.2% lower pressure, 89.5% lower NOx emission and 8.1% lower soot emission compared with the baseline fuel in same combustion chamber geometry with same initial parameters.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.53-62
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• 2017

The forced convection heat transfer performance of a twist-vane spacer grid for a dual-cooled annular fuel assembly was examined experimentally. The twist-vane spacer grid was uniquely designed to enhance mixing inside subchannels and mixing between adjacent subchannels. For testing, a $4{\times}4$ square-arrayed rod bundle with narrow gaps between rods was prepared as the dual-cooled annular fuel assembly to be simulated. The pitch-to-rod diameter ratio of simulated dual-cooled annular fuel assembly was 1.08. The experiments were performed under the following conditions: axial bulk velocity, 1.5 m/s and heat flux, $26kW/m^2$. With regard to the circumferential temperature distribution, the lowest rod-wall temperatures upstream and downstream were measured at the subchannel center and the position toward the tip of twist-vane, respectively. With regard to the axial temperature distribution, behind the twist-vane spacer grid, the rod-wall temperature decreased drastically, and the Nusselt number was enhanced by up to 56 %. The present measured data indicate that the twist-vane spacer grid can effectively improve the forced convection heat transfer in the dual-cooled annular fuel assembly with narrow gaps.