Calculation of temperature distribution in fuel rod of power reactor using one dimension time dependent heat conduction equation

A numerical solution based on finite difference technique for one dimension time dependent and for steady state heat conduction equation is developed considering different geometrics such as slab, cylindrical, and sperhical for power reactor fuel element whether it is for PWR or BWR type. The temperature distribution is calculated in the reactor fuel considering the heat source as a result of the deposition of energy released in the nuclear fuel during the fission of U-235 nuclei. In present work, mathematical correlations for thermal conductivities for ceramic fuel (UO2) and for cladding material (zircaloy-4) are obtained as function of temperature using the computer code-Minuits based on least-squares technique via fitting experimental thermal conductivity results for both the ceramic fuel and cladding material. The obtained numerical solutions in the present work for one dimension time dependent heat conduction equation exhibits a good accuracy and can be applied successfully to calculate the temperature distribution in different types of reactor fuel element geometry. 25 tabs.; 35 refs.; 27 figs. 2 apps