Nuclear Fuel Safety Criteria Technical Review (Second Edition) [electronic resource] /
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and DevelopmentContributor
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and DevelopmentContent Provider
Paris : OECD Publishing,
2012.
Most of the current nuclear fuel safety criteria were established during the 1960s and early 1970s. Although these criteria were validated against experiments with fuel designs available at that time, a number of tests were based on unirradiated fuels. Additional verification was performed as these designs evolved, but mostly with the aim of showing that the new designs adequately complied with existing criteria, and not to establish new limits. In 1996, the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) reviewed existing fuel safety criteria, focusing on new fuel and core designs, new cladding materials and industry manufacturing processes. The results were published in the Nuclear Fuel Safety Criteria Technical Review of 2001. The NEA has since re-examined the criteria. A brief description of each criterion and its rationale are presented in this second edition, which will be of interest to both regulators and industry (fuel vendors, utilities).
1. Introduction 7  2. Re-examination by the working group 11  -2.1. Fuel safety, operational and design criteria: historical perspective  11  -2.2. Types of criteria 14  -2.3. Changes in fuel design and operation 19  -2.4. Assessing the potential effects of changes 20  3. Review of fuel (safety) criteria 21  -3.1. Critical heat flux 21  -3.2. Reactivity coefficients 24  -3.3. Criticality and shutdown margin 26  -3.4. Fuel enrichment 28  -3.5. CRUD deposition 28  -3.6. Stress/strain/fatigue 30  -3.7. Oxidation and hydriding 32  -3.8. Rod internal gas pressure 36  -3.9. Thermal mechanical loads and PCMI 37  -3.10. Pellet cladding interaction (PCI)/stress corrosion cracking (SCC) 40  -3.11. Fuel melting 42  -3.12. LHGR limits 44  -3.13. RIA cladding failure 46  -3.14. Fuel fragmentation and fuel dispersal 47  -3.15. Non-LOCA cladding embrittlement/temperature 49  -3.16. LOCA cladding embrittlement 50  -3.17. Blowdown/seismic/transportation loads 51  -3.18. Assembly holddown force 52  -3.19. Fretting wear 54  -3.20. Coolant activity 54  -3.21. Fuel gap activity 55  -3.22. Source term 56  -3.23. Burn-up 57  4. Other considerations 61  -4.1. Core management 61  -4.2. Mixed-oxide fuel 62  -4.3. Mixed assembly cores 64  -4.4. Slow or incomplete control rod insertion 65  -4.5. Axial offset anomaly 65  -4.6. Cladding diameter increase 66  -4.7. Cladding elongation 66  -4.8. Radial peaking factors 66  -4.9. 3D peaking factor 67  -4.10. Cladding stability 67  5. Observations 6. Summary and conclusions 71 7. Glossary 73  8. References 75   
Most of the current nuclear fuel safety criteria were established during the 1960s and early 1970s. Although these criteria were validated against experiments with fuel designs available at that time, a number of tests were based on unirradiated fuels. Additional verification was performed as these designs evolved, but mostly with the aim of showing that the new designs adequately complied with existing criteria, and not to establish new limits. In 1996, the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) reviewed existing fuel safety criteria, focusing on new fuel and core designs, new cladding materials and industry manufacturing processes. The results were published in the Nuclear Fuel Safety Criteria Technical Review of 2001. The NEA has since re-examined the criteria. A brief description of each criterion and its rationale are presented in this second edition, which will be of interest to both regulators and industry (fuel vendors, utilities).
Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph
Nuclear Energy
Mechanical Engineering
Engineering & Applied Sciences
Nuclear Engineering