Performances Analyses of Crud of EPR Fuel Assembly

Abstract

Taishan European Pressurized Water Reactor (EPR) is a third generation advanced pressurized water reactor (PWR), which adopts the third generation advanced fuel assembly (AFA-3G-LE) from AREVA for the first time. As suggested by American Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), an EPRI level III crud risk assessment is necessary for new type of plants. Because crud induced power offset (CIPS) and crud induced local corrosion (CILC) can lead to axial offset anomaly (AOA) and fuel cladding failure, respectively. A EPRI level III CIPS/CILC risk assessment for Taishan EPR is performed with a new framework of simulation by using sub-channel code FLICA, crud code BOA, and Monte Carlo transport code Tripoli-4. Such framework enables a self-consistent calculation, including a detailed description on neutronics contributed by boron. The validation of present work is confirmed because of the good agreement with the experienced data of EPRI. The results show that AFA-3G-LE has a good performance on crud risk assessment. Even in the worst case, the boron-10 deposition (2.6 g) and the maximum thickness of crud (59 μm) are lower than the low risk threshold, 31.33 g and 75 μm, respectively. Hence, It is expected that Taishan EPR has a very low risk on CIPS and CILC.