Development of a fretting-wear and flow-induced vibration model for the fuel rods

A model developed to predict fretting-wear performance and vibration response of fuel rods is presented. The model was derived using classic approximations such as the generalized pseudo-forces method and modal analysis. It includes all hydraulic, structural and tribological effects considered to be of sufficient importance for the prediction of the fretting-wear performance. In order to deal with inherent variability associated with some of these phenomena, the numerical implementation of the method was tuned to a large body of experimental data. Method benchmarking was carried out by predicting an endurance test of a full size nuclear fuel assembly. (author)