Computer Adoptable Core Disassembly Model for Indian PHWRs
Ritu J Singh†, K. Ravi and S.K. Gupta
Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, Niyamak Bhavan, Anushakti Nagar
Mumbai400094, †ritusingh@aerb.gov.in
Abstract-This paper describes procedure to develop a
computer adoptable core disassembly model for Indian PHWR
which would serve as an input for severe accident
management. The severe accident considered in the analysis is
loss of coolant accident (LOCA) coincident with loss of
emergency core cooling system (ECCS) coupled with loss of
moderator cooling. As the accident progresses calandria tubes
get exposed to steam and its temperature increases. Calandria
tubes sag and rest on the tube immediately below as the
temperature increases. As the accident progresses the
calandria tubes pile up and ultimately fail when total strain in
calandria tube reaches failure strain. A failure surface is
obtained in this paper, which may be used for predicting the
time available before the collapse of core. Although the model
is developed for Zr 2.5 % Nb material but a similar model may
be developed using Zircaloy 2/Zircaloy 4 material as and when
the material properties at higher temperatures become
available.
Keywords – Calandria tubes, creep strain equations, failure
surface, failure strain, severe accident
I INTRODUCTION
220 MWe Indian PHWR has a horizontal core which
consists of 306 pressure tubes. Fuel bundles reside inside
these pressure tubes. Each pressure tube is located within
calandria tube, which is supported by end shields. Heavy
water, which acts as moderator, is contained in the calandria
vessel.
In LOCA with loss of ECCS, the fuel is at decay power
and the primary heat transport system pressure is reduced.
As the residual liquid in the fuel channels boils off the fuel
bundles become uncovered. Consequently, the fuel bundle
starts getting heated up. The only mode of heat transfer is
radiative heat transfer from fuel bundle to pressure tube,
pressure tube to calandria tube and then convective heat
transfer from calandria tube to moderator. As long as the
calandria tube remains surrounded by moderator, the core
geometry is maintained. If moderator cooling and makeup
are unavailable, the water levels in calandria will start to
drop and uncover the upper fuel channels. The temperature
of the uncovered pressure tube and calandria tube starts
increasing. As a result of the increased temperature the
calandria tube sags. This sag keeps on increasing with
temperature and ultimately the calandria tube gets in contact
with another calandria tube just below it. With further
increase in temperature both the tube sags together to touch
third calandria tube below it. As the accident progresses the
calandria tubes pile up and ultimately break when total
strain in calandria tube reaches failure strain.
During the progression of severe accident, it is
important to know the state of the core and predict the time
that is available before the disassembly. Towards this
objective a nonlinear Finite Element model for simulating
core disassembly was developed using general purpose
finite element code, ANSYS. The model includes material
nonlinearity and high temperature creep. The contact of
calandria tubes is also modeled using contact elements. A 3-
D failure surface is obtained from the finite element
analysis. The temperature transient corresponding to the
severe accident can be mapped onto the failure surface to
estimate the time in hand before the piled up channels fall
and form corium at the bottom of the calandria.
II DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAILURE CURVE
A. Geometric Modeling
Modeling of calandria tube was done using Beam
element, Beam 188. BEAM188 is suitable for analyzing
slender to moderately stubby/thick beam structures. It is a
linear (2-node) beam element in 3-D. This element supports
elasticity, creep, and plasticity models. Discretized model
consisted of 500 elements and 1001 nodes. The parameters
used while building the geometric model are tabulated in
table I below.
B. Material Modeling
During the severe accident the calandria tube
temperature can reach up to 1400K. As material properties of
Zircaloy 2/Zircaloy 4 are not available for temperatures up to
1400K, properties of Zr 2.5%Nb are used for modeling
purpose. These properties can be substituted in the FE model
as and when available
The material properties for Zr-2.5% Nb are available
up to 873 K. The properties for higher temperatures are
evaluated by regression tools. Fig.1 shows the stress strain
curves for temperature range 373K to 1400K.
 TABLE I ε& =Creep rate per sec.
MODELING PARAMETERS

T =Absolute Temperature
Parameter
σ = Equivalent stress in MPa
Calandria tube Inner radius(m) 0.05385
Calandria tube thickness(m) 0.00124 Time hardening creep model was used to simulate above
Length of tube(m) 5.08 equations in ANSYS for doing creep analysis.

Fuel weight(N) 1638.27

D. Contact Simulation
Pressure tube weight(N) 348.143
Contact elements are used to simulate the contact of
Vertical pitch of calandria tube(m) 0.2286
one row of channels sagging and touching lower rows of
channel. As the upper calandria tube gradually sags the
point of contact will be along the upper surface of the lower
The creep effects are significant in Zircaloy in calandria tube but the exact point of contact is not known.
temperature range higher than 723 K [1] and hence creep Hence, in present analysis node to surface contact is used. It
effects are include in the analysis. The creep rate equations is observed that the time interval between uncovery of two
used in this analysis for different temperature ranges are consecutive rows of channel is much larger than the time
described below. upper row of channel takes to contact lower channel. Hence
the lower channel remains submerged when contact occurs.
1000 So the lower channel is modeled as a rigid target.
373
800 473 E. Boundary conditions
573
623
600 723 The calandria tubes are rolled to calandria side tube
Stress (MPa)

773 sheet on both the ends. Therefore both the ends of the beam
873
400 900 model are constrained for all degrees of freedom.
1000
1100 F. Applied Loads
200 1200
1300
1400 For LOCA and loss of ECCS the pressure tube either
0 balloons or sags in to contact of calandria tube. Therefore
the total load acting on calandria tube is fuel bundles weight
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
Strain
and pressure tube weight. The weight loading W is
calculated as,
Fig. 1. Stress strain curve for Zr 2.5%Nb for temperature
range 373K to 1400K W=WFuel Bundle + W Pressure Tube

C. Creep strain equations Where,

W Fuel Bundle is total fuel bundle weight in a channel.
For temperature range of 973 to 1123K
W Pressure Tube is weight of pressure tube.
ε& = 1 .3 × 10
−5
σ
9
(
T
)
exp − 36600 + 5 .7 × 10 σ
7 1 .8
exp − 29200
T
( ) W Fuel Bundle = No. of. Fuel bundles in the channel ×
Weight of each bundle
=10 ×16.7 × 9.81 =1638.27 N.
For temperature range of 1123K to 1223K W Pressure Tube= Cross sectional area of pressure tube×
Length ×Density × g
ε& = 10 .4σ
3 .4
T
(
exp −19600 ) + 3 .5 × 10 4 σ 1 .4 exp (−19600
T
) =1.084774e-2×5.080×6440×9.81
=348.14 N.
W=1986.41N
For temperature range of 1223 to 1473 K The uniformly distributed load on calandria tube will be

(
ε& =10 .4σ 3 .4 exp − 19600     
T
)    
=0.39N/mm.
Where
The Calandria tube weight is accounted by activating
acceleration due to gravity in the model. The temperature
load is applied uniformly along the length of the tube. The
geometric model is shown in fig 2
bottom of the core. To start with pile up of three calandria
tubes was assumed and temperature of 1150K was applied
uniformly along the length. Static analysis was carried out
to find the time at the strain in the piled up calandria tubes
reaches failure strain value at 1150K. The failure strain
values [1] at different temperature for Zr 2.5% Nb is shown
in fig 4. Similarly for different combination of piled up
channels and temperatures, time to reach failure strain was
found out using FE analysis.

200

180

160

140

Total elongation %
120

100

80

Fig. 2. Isometric view of a calandria tube before 60

deformation 40

G. Static Analysis 20

0
Initially a static linear analysis was carried out without 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000110012001300
activating creep effects. Then nonlinear analysis was carried Temperature C
o

out and creep effects were activated. The time step size used
in the analysis was 0.001 secs. Deformed shape of the Fig. 4. Failure strain values of Zr 2.5% Nb at different
calandria tube is shown in fig 3. temperatures.
H. The failure surface Figs 5, 6, & 7 show the time to failure vs. no. of
channels piled up for fixed temperature of calandria tube.
The aim of the whole analysis was to develop a failure
The plot of no. of piled up channels, temperature and times
curve which would give conservative estimate of time
of failure gives the 3D failure curve as shown in fig 9.
available before the piled up calandria tubes break and fall
at the
Temperature-1150K

1200

1000
Time to failure in seconds

800

600

400

200

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
No. of channels piled up

Fig. 5. Time to failure for 1150K.

Fig. 3. Deformed shape of calandria tube.
 Temperature-1200K

1200

1000
Time to failure in seconds

800

600

400

200

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
No. of channels piled up

Fig. 6. Time to failure for 1200K.

Fig. 9. The 3D failure surface
Temperature-1250K

1200
III COMPUTER ADOPTABLE MODEL
1000
Time to failure in seconds

Design Basis Accidents have been considered for

800
safety assessment of a nuclear reactor. However, nowadays
severe accidents are being analyzed to arrive at a strategy
600
for severe accident management. In the interest of public
400
safety, regulatory body ensures that appropriate strategy for
severe accident management is developed. The failure
200 surface obtained above can be used as an effective tool to
estimate the time available before the core collapses. The
0 calandria tube temperature can be mapped on the graph and
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
No. of channels piled up
extrapolated to read the time in hand before failure.

The temperature Vs time graph of calandria tube

Fig. 7. Time to failure for1250K. obtained from thermal hydraulic analysis in codes like
RELAP has been used to see if the failure surface
conservatively predicts the time to failure. An FEM analysis
is carried out wherein temperature loading corresponding to
the actual temperature transient in the severe accident was
1200
carried out. This analysis gave the time to failure of the
calandria tube under severe accident as 76 secs. This
1000 temperature transient was also mapped onto the failure
surface .The point of intersection of the two plots gave the
Time (seconds)

800 time to failure as given by the failure surface which was 72

1150K
1200K secs. Fig 10 demonstrates the mapping of the transient on
600
1223K the failure surface for 10 channels piled up.
1210K

400
IV ASSUMPTIONS

200
1. The tensile behavior of tube material at high temperature
3 4 5 6
is taken based on the data available up to 873K [2].
No of channels piled up
Properties above 873K are calculated based on regression
tools.
Fig. 8.Load , temperature and time plot 2. The pressure tube weight and fuel bundle weights are
uniformly distributed on lower portion of Calandria tube.
3. Rolled joint is not included in the analysis. seen in fig 5, when 6 channels pile up and there temperature
is 1150K, then there will be 15 min left before the channels
4. Effect of irradiation creep is not included in the analysis. fall. For a temperature of 1200 K and 6 piled up channels
time available before disassembly will be around 17.5
5. For simulating contact between the channels, the lower minutes. Similarly, at 1210K it is only 3 minutes and at
channel is assumed to be submerged in the moderator and 1223K it is only 4 minutes for six channel load.
hence assumed rigid
Fig 8 shows comparison of failure time for different
Failure graph temperatures. It can be seen that longest time before failure
Temperature transient is available at 1200 K where as lowest would occur at 1210
80 K. Failure time for 1150K and 1223 K lie in between. This
can be explained from the failure strain curve shown in
figure 4. Zr 2.5% Nb has lower failure strain values in the
75 temperature range of 1123 K to 1223K.
Time (secs)

70
VI SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

65 This work aimed to bring out the procedure to develop

a computer adoptable core disassembly model. FEM
60
analysis was done to develop a failure surface which can be
utilized to predict the time before the core disassembles. For
1145 1150 1155 1160 1165 1170 1175 1180 1185 1190
220MWe Indian PHWRs if the number of channels piled is
Temperature K known, the failure surface would give the time available
before the piled up channels fail. Although the model was
developed for Zr 2.5%Nb but a similar model may be
Fig. 10. Mapping of the temperature transient on the Failure developed for zircaloy 2/zircaloy 4 material as and when the
material properties at elevated temperatures become
curve for 10 channels piled up.
available.

REFERENCES
V DISCUSSION

The temperature of calandria tube varies along the [1] Rodchenkov, B.S, Semenov., “High temperature
length. But, for the purpose of finding out the enveloping mechanical behavior of Zr-2.5% Nb alloy”., Nuclear
scenario the temperature is applied uniformly at all nodes. Engineering and Design 235(2005 )2009-2018
Figs 5, 6, and 7 show that at a given temperature, time to
failure decreases as the load on the channel increases. As [2]Singh. R.N, R.Kishore, T.K.Sinha and S.Banerjee.,”
Tensile properties of Zr-2.5Nb pessure tube alloy
between 25 and 800 oC”, BARC/2000/E/029.