For economic and safe management of Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF), it is very important to maintain the structural integrity of SNF and to keep the fuel undamaged and handleable. The cladding surrounding nuclear fuel must be protected from physical and mechanical deterioration. The structural evaluation of SNF is very complicated and numerically demanding and it is essential to develop a simplified model for the fuel rod. In this study, a simplified model was developed using a new cladding failure criterion. The simplified model was developed considering only the horizontal or lateral static load utilizing the cladding material properties of irradiated Zirclaoy-4, and applicability in horizontal and vertical drop impacts was investigated. When a fuel rod is subject to bending, a very complicated 3D stress state is generated within the vicinity of the pellet–pellet interface. A very localized stress concentration is observed in the area where the edges of the pellets contact the cladding. If the failure strain criteria obtained from the uniaxial tension test or biaxial tube test is applied, failure is predicted at the beginning stage of loading with premature through-thickness stress or strain development. The localized contact stress or strain is self-limiting and is not a good candidate for the cladding failure criteria. In this work, a new cladding failure criterion is proposed, which can account for the localized stress concentration and the through-thickness stress development. The failure of the cladding is determined by the membrane plus bending stress generated through the thickness of the cladding, which can be calculated by a process called stress linearization along the stress classification line. The failure criterion for SNF was selected as the membrane plus bending stress through stress linearization in the cross-sections through the thickness of the cladding. Because the stress concentration in the cladding around the vicinity of the pellet–pellet interface cannot be simulated in a simplified beam model, a stress correction factor is derived through a comparison of the simplified model and detailed model. The applicability of the developed simplified model is checked through horizontal and vertical drop impact simulations. It is shown that the stress correction factor derived considering static bending loading can be effectively applied to the dynamic impact analyses in both horizontal and vertical orientations.

The extended slip-weakening model was investigated by using a compiled set of source-spectrum-related parameters, i.e. seismic moment Mo, S-wave velocity Vs, corner-frequency fc, and source-controlled high-cut frequency fmax, for 113 shallow crustal earthquakes (focal depth less than 25 km, MW 3.0~7.5) that occurred in Japan from 1987 to 2016. The investigation was focused on the characteristics of stress drop, radiation energy-to-seismic moment ratio, radiation efficiency, and fracture energy release rate, Gc. The scaling relationships of those source parameters were also investigated and compared with those in previous studies, which were based on generally used singular models with the dimensionless numbers corresponding to fc given by Brune and Madariaga. The results showed that the stress drop from the singular model with Madariaga’s dimensionless number was equivalent to the breakdown stress drop, as well as Brune’s effective stress, rather than to static stress drop as has been usually assumed. The scale dependence of stress drop showed a different tendency in accordance with the size category of the earthquakes, which may be divided into small-moderate earthquakes and moderate-large earthquakes by comparing to Mo = 1017~1018 Nm. The scale dependence was quite similar to that shown by Kanamori and Rivera. The scale dependence was not because of a poor dynamic range of recorded signals or missing data as asserted by Ide and Beroza, but rather it was because of the scale dependent Vr-induced local similarity of spectrum as shown in a previous study by the authors. The energy release rate Gc with respect to breakdown distance Dc from the extended slip-weakening model coincided with that given by Ellsworth and Beroza in a study on the rupture nucleation phase; and the empirical relationship given by Abercrombie and Rice can represent the results from the extended slip-weakening model, the results from laboratory stick-slip experiments by Ohnaka, and the results given by Ellsworth and Beroza simultaneously. Also the energy flux into the breakdown zone was well correlated with the breakdown stress drop,   and peak slip velocity of the fault faces. Consequently, the investigation results indicate the appropriateness of the extended slip-weakening model.

해일지진 및 해일유발지진의 특성을 기존의 연구결과인 규모, 모멘트, 에너지 그리고 단층의 길이 등의 자료를 이용하여 응력강하량 및 지체구조 관점에서 분석을 하였다. 해일지진(Tsunami Earthquake)은 일반 지진이나 해일유발지진(Tsunamigenic Earthquake)보다는 약 10bar 정도의 매우 낮은 응력강하량을 가지며 에너지/모멘트 비가 매우 작으며 주로 해구의 매우 낮은 경사의 스러스트 단층에서 발생하는 것으로 분석이 된다. 한편 동해에서 해일을 유발한 지진들은 약30∼50bar의 응력강하량로서 에너지/모멘트비가 세계평균과 비슷한 스러스트 단층에서 발생하는 것으로 유추된다. 따라서 응력강하, 에너지/모멘트 비, 그리고 스러스트 단층의 경사각은 지진해일 발생특성을 나타내는 인자로 대표될 수 있다.