FEAT3D: An aid in bearing pad design for CANDU fuel elements

FEAT3D was written as a general finite element code, capable of calculating steady-state temperature distributions in heat conducting systems of arbitrary geometries. The primary motivation for its development was to provide a simple tool for comparing heat transfer capabilities of various bearing pad designs for CANDU fuel elements, which offer reduced heat transfer and for which analyses involving two-dimensional models were inadequate. The paper presents the theory underlying the code development, together with the case studies of three new designs: stand-off, trapezoidal and transverse slot bearing pads