A study on the buckling characteristic of the spacer grid in the improved 16X16 fuel assembly

The new 16X16 fuel assembly design has been developed to improve the nuclear, thermal-hydraulic, and mechanical performance of the current 16X16 fuel assembly design in Kori 2. This study contains the static buckling analysis for the plate and cell models to evaluate the buckling characteristic of spacer grid. The static buckling strength of 16X16 mid grid design was estimated using the static buckling analysis result with cell models and the estimated static buckling strength was compared with the static buckling test result. The dynamic buckling strength of 16X16 mid grid design was estimated using previous test result for similar design. The estimated static buckling strength and dynamic buckling strength are well coincident with the test result of the improved 16X16 spacer grid