Experiments on the load following behaviour of PWR fuel rods

Abstract

KWU had studied the effects of load following operation on fuel performance from the beginning of commercial operation of nuclear power plants: The first power cycling experiments were started in 1970 in the nuclear power plant Obrigheim (KWO) and in the High Flux Reactor (HFR) Petten. These power cycling tests performed at various power levels and burnups of up to 25 GWd/t(U) showed that the fuel rod cycling performance compares well with the performance of fuel rods operated under essentially constant load at comparable power levels. Two additional cycling tests as described in this paper were performed in the HFR Petten with preirradiated PWR fuel rods having burnups of up to 40 GWd/t(U). These experiments comprised up to 60 cycles between 250/360 W/cm and 215/320 W/cm with 10% power overshoot (400, 370 W/cm) after each cycle. Also, these experiments ended up with sound fuel rods. Moreover, detailed investigations before and between power cycles and after experiment termination showed clearly that the fuel performance corresponds to a single ramp to peak power and that the cycling effects are indeed very small. This confirmed earlier findings that due to crack reversal in the UO 2 the cyclic dimensional changes mainly occur in the UO 2 itself. Altogether the experiments show that power cycling does not lead to fuel rod failures, which is also confirmed by successful load follow operation in commercial power plants.