Interpretation of ria tests. Buckling of fuel plates

J.-M. Gatt (1)

1 CEA-DES (ex-DEN) - CEA-Direction des Energies (ex-Direction de l'Energie Nucléaire)

This paper presents an interpretation of transient experiments using a low enriched uranium silicide miniplate fuels prepared for the Japan Research Reactor-3. These tests were performed for the Nuclear Safety Research Reactor (NSRR) at Japan Atomic Energy Institute (JAERI). The miniplates are submitted to power pulses to simulate RIA accident. According to deposited energy, a geometrical instability can be observed. In the first part of this paper, the methods by eigen modes and perturbation are presented in the framework of the study of a shell in thermal compression. In the second part a description of the tests will be performed. Different approaches to interpret these tests, using finite elements and an analytical approach will be presented. The first approach uses the Eigen modes. To take into account the geometrical defects of the plate, we propose to use a perturbation method. The defects are modelled using the first Eigen mode. These two approaches assume an elastic behaviour of the structure. To take into account of the plasticity, a perturbation method is used. The different experimental results, as the buckling temperature and the final shape of the plate, are found.

Keywords: Fuel; RJH; U3Si2; Buckling; RIA

Domains: Nuclear Experiment [nucl-ex]; Nuclear Theory [nucl-th]

J.-M. Gatt. Interpretation of ria tests. Buckling of fuel plates. SMIRT 23 - 23st International Conference on Structural Mechanics in Reactor Technology, Aug 2015, Manchester, United Kingdom. ⟨cea-02500832⟩