Stress analysis and collapse time prediction of nuclear fuel cladding tube with wear scar

In this analysis, the stress and collapse time analysis models for nuclear fuel rod with the fretting wear scar were developed in order to evaluate the effects of the wear depth on the integrity of nuclear fuel rod. The stress analysis result shows that the nuclear fuel rod with approximately 60% deep wear scar of the clad wall thickness, meets the allowable stress criteria and the collapse time analysis indicates that the fuel rod with less than roughly 56% deep wear scar of the clad wall thickness has longer collapse time than the expected fuel life-time. The both stress and collapse time results are evaluated to be very reasonable on considering the comparison with the outputs of existing design code for the simple model. However, the developed analysis models and the results will be confirmed by the tests