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What are Fuel Failure Mechanisms – Definition

There are various fuel failure root causes, that have been identified in past. In the early dates of PWR and BWR operations, these causes were predominantly fabrication defects or fretting.

There are various fuel failure root causes, that have been identified in past. In the early dates of PWR and BWR operations, these causes were predominantly fabrication defects or fretting. The following list is not complete, there are also failure mechanisms that are typical for certain reactor and fuel design. It must be also noted that many of fuel failure causes were never identified and remain unknown.

  • Fretting. Fretting was one of main failure mechanisms in the early dates of PWR and BWR operations. It has typically two variants.
    • Debris fretting. Debris fretting can be caused by any debris (foregn material – usually metallic) that can enter the fuel bundle and that has the potential of becoming lodged between the spacer grid and a fuel rod. Fretting wear of fuel cladding can results in cladding penetration.
    • Grid-to-rod fretting. Grid-to-rod fretting arises from vibration of the fuel element generated by the high coolant
      velocity through the spacing grid. Spacing grids are welded onto the guide tubes and ensure, by means of springs and dimples, fuel rod support, and spacing. High coolant velocity can cause the rod to rub against the part of the spacer grid
      that holds it. This type of cladding wear can be minimized by proper design of the spacing grid. Baffle-jetting is usually grouped under grid-to-rod fretting.
  • Pellet-cladding interaction (PCI). Failures due to PCI are typical for power changes, rod movement and plant startup. They usually occur within a few hours or days following a power ramp or control rods movement. This results especially in startup ramp rate restrictions.
  • Dryout. In BWRs, when the heat flux exceeds a critical value (CHF – critical heat flux) the flow pattern may reach the dryout conditions (thin film of liquid disappears). The heat transfer from the fuel surface into the coolant is deteriorated, with the result of a drastically increased fuel surface temperature. This phenomenon can cause failure of affected fuel rod.
  • Fabrication defects
    • End-plug weld defects.
    • Cladding creep collapse. Cladding collapse can be caused by densification of the fuel pellets forming axial gaps in the pellet column resulted in collapse from outer pressure. Since creep is time dependent, full collapse typically occur at higher burnup. This type of failure can be eliminated through the use of pellets with moderate densification and pre-pressurization of rods.
    • Missing pellet surface
  • Internal Hydriding. Inadvertent inclusion of hydrogen-containing materials inside a fuel rod can result in hydriding and thus embrittlement of fuel cladding. Hydrogen sources were mainly residual moisture or organic contamination in fuel pellets/rods. This cause of failure has been practically eliminated through improved manufacturing.
  • Crud induced corrosion.  Crud induced corrosion failures are either due to abnormally high heat flux exceeding heat flux or burnup corrosion limits or to water chemistry problems leading to excessive crud deposits. In BWRs, crud induced corrosion was one of the major causes of fuel failure in the 1980s.
  • Delayed hydride cracking (DHC). Delayed hydride cracking is time-dependent crack initiation and propagation through fracture of hydrides that can form ahead of the crack tip. This type of failure can be initiated by long cracks at the outer surface of the cladding, which can propagate in an axial/radial direction. This failure mechanism may potentially limit high burnup
    operation.
  • Fuel handling damages

See also: IAEA, Review of fuel failures in water cooled reactors. No. NF-T-2.1. ISBN 978–92–0–102610–1, Vienna, 2010.

Loss of Tightness of Fuel Cladding

Cladding prevents radioactive fission products from escaping the fuel matrix into the reactor coolant and contaminating it. Emergence of a leak in that cladding results in:

  • the transport of specific chemical elements (fission products) that are stable, and radioactive (iodine, xenon, krypton…) into the reactor’s primary circuit
  • deposits of long-lived isotopes (cesium, strontium, technetium…), or even, in exceptional circumstances, of alpha emitters onto the piping of the primary circuit, or of ancillary circuits
  • an increase in the overall level of irradiation for that circuit, from the level already due to activation products (corrosion products, e.g. cobalt, chromium, iron in particular)

A leak thus poses a major challenge in operational terms, for a power plant operator, since it has a direct bearing on the level of radiological exposure workers are subjected to, when running the plant, or carrying out maintenance. Although fuel failures have rarely been a safety related issue, their impact on plant operational costs due to:

  • premature fuel discharge,
  • following cycle shortening,
  • possible unscheduled outages,
  • increased spent fuel volume

One of the necessary steps to reach the zero defect goal is to understand the root causes of the failures and their mechanisms, so that some corrective actions can be implemented, either through improvements in fuel design and fabrication by fuel suppliers, or operational changes, such as reduced power maneuvering.

Special Reference: CEA, Nuclear Energy Division. Nuclear Fuels, ISBN 978-2-281-11345-7

References:

Materials Science:

  1. U.S. Department of Energy, Material Science. DOE Fundamentals Handbook, Volume 1 and 2. January 1993.
  2. U.S. Department of Energy, Material Science. DOE Fundamentals Handbook, Volume 2 and 2. January 1993.
  3. William D. Callister, David G. Rethwisch. Materials Science and Engineering: An Introduction 9th Edition, Wiley; 9 edition (December 4, 2013), ISBN-13: 978-1118324578.
  4. Eberhart, Mark (2003). Why Things Break: Understanding the World by the Way It Comes Apart. Harmony. ISBN 978-1-4000-4760-4.
  5. Gaskell, David R. (1995). Introduction to the Thermodynamics of Materials (4th ed.). Taylor and Francis Publishing. ISBN 978-1-56032-992-3.
  6. González-Viñas, W. & Mancini, H.L. (2004). An Introduction to Materials Science. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-07097-1.
  7. Ashby, Michael; Hugh Shercliff; David Cebon (2007). Materials: engineering, science, processing and design (1st ed.). Butterworth-Heinemann. ISBN 978-0-7506-8391-3.
  8. J. R. Lamarsh, A. J. Baratta, Introduction to Nuclear Engineering, 3d ed., Prentice-Hall, 2001, ISBN: 0-201-82498-1.

See above:
Material Problems

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