ICONE23-1721 Experimental and finite element analysis of the compression properties of spacer grid of NHR200-II fuel assembly

Abstract

The twelve by twelve spacer grid of NHR200-II is developed on the basis of spacer grid of NHR200-I. As the spacer grid plays an important role in the fuel assemblies, it is reasonably important to determine the integral properties of spacer grid. In this work, static compression experiments with specially designed equipment are utilized to investigate the compression properties of the spacer grid at room temperature. The FE model of the spacer grid is also employed to obtain the stiffness of the spacer grid, using the finite element code Abaqus/Explicit. The result of experiments and the finite element (FE) model shows good agreements, which verifies accuracy of the FE method.