BWR Reactor Fuel Channel Manufacturing Simulations

Sammanfattning: Fuel channels are used to keep the components of a nuclear fuel bundle in place. The fuel channel of a new nuclear fuel which is being developed at Westinghouse has a complex geometry which creates challenges in the manufacturing process. FE simulations were developed of a two-stage forming process of the fuel channel. Three different simulations were developed, a simulation of the pre-bending, a simplified simulation of bending, and a combined simulation of the two-stage process of pre-bending and bending. The simulations were done in Ansys Workbench. The simulations of the pre-bending could be validated against experimental results. The simulations of the bending showed significant differences in results compared to experiments. A few different sources of error were investigated due to the difference in results.