Theoretical evaluation of rifled cladding for LWR fuel

Rifled Cladding deviates from regular fuel designs mainly by the inner surface of the cladding tube being prismatic, with a large number of faces. The design has been tested in the R2 test reactor at Studsvik, and is scheduled for testing in a Swedish BWR. Its observed technical merit is to reduce the fission gas release and increase the failure threshold during overpowers. The present study aims to find an explanation of the observed increase in failure threshold, i.e., the heat rating at which cladding failure occurs. Failure is strongly related to the maximum mechanical stress. The INTERPIN code was used to calculate the starting conditions for an overpower event, and the FREY-01 was used for finite element calculations of cladding stress distributions during the overpower. FREY-01 accounts for the kinetics of fuel pellet cracking and its impact on cladding stresses. The study focuses on the conditions that produce the highest cladding stress. It was found that the worst case is associated with cracks opening close to the fuel-cladding contact loci, i.e., the midface positions of the prismatic surface, with no additional cracks at non-contact positions. This situation is similar to what holds for regular fuel. If, however, cracks also open at corner positions, then the calculated maximum stresses are considerably less. This latter situation is, in fact, observed in hot cell examinations of ramped rifled cladding rods. Therefore, the improved failure resistance of rifled cladding rods can be explained in terms of a reduction of the strong azimuthal mechanical interaction between fuel and cladding that may occur in fuel rods of regular design. (orig.)