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.

본 논문에서는 페이즈필드 설계법 기반의 피로 제약 조건 구조물의 위상최적설계를 수행하였다. 페이즈필드 설계법의 도입으로 기존의 위상최적설계법에서 발생하기 쉬운 중간 영역의 크기를 크게 감소시켰다. 수정된 upper bound P-norm의 도입으로 모든 지점의 응력 성분을 고려하면서, 전역적 응력값이 국부적 최대 응력값과 근사한 값을 가질 수 있도록 설정하였다. 또한 기존의 피로 파괴 제약 조건 위상최적설계에서 다루지 않았던 응력 수정 계수에 대한 고려를 위하여 위상최적설계 결과물의 1차 주응력 성분을 고려하여 응력 수정 계수를 도입하고 이에 따라 허용 응력 진폭 값을 수정 하였다. 이를 통하여 인장 응력으로 인한 내구 한도 감소 요인을 반영한 체계적인 설계 방안을 제시하였다.