Element bowing assessments of CANFLEX fuel bundle during in-reactor service and refuelling Original Research Article

Assessments of CANDU fuel element bowing in terms of reactor operating conditions such as the fuel channel power, fuel bundle power and fuel burn-up can help to demonstrate the integrity of fuel and of surrounding components during in-reactor service and refuelling. The element bowing of the standard 37-element bundle and CANFLEX 43-element bundle for the use in CANDU-6 eractor was analyzed with a newly developed formular for the thermally induced bowing analysis of CANDU fuel elements. All the required input data for the analyses were provided in terms of the reactor operating conditions in accordance with the proposed systematic method using various computer codes being used for the analyses of the reactor physics, thermal hydraulics and fuel element performance. The result of the analyses is that the CANFLEX 43-element bundle exhibits more desirable element bowing behaviours than the standard 37-element bundle.