Method for evaluating damage condition of fuel element in pressurized water reactor

• Main Authors: LI ZHIJUN, YANG JUNWU, FU PENGTAO, YE YAOXIN, DAI MINGLIANG
• Format: Patent
• Language: Chinese; English
• Published: 23.05.2023
• Subjects: NUCLEAR ENGINEERING; NUCLEAR PHYSICS; NUCLEAR REACTORS; PHYSICS

The invention relates to a method for evaluating the damage condition of a fuel element in a pressurized water reactor, and the method comprises the following steps: sampling a coolant of the pressurized water reactor at set intervals during the operation of the pressurized water reactor, and measuring and recording the Xe-133 activity in the coolant sample; generating a curve for representing the change of Xe-133 activity along with time; and identifying whether the fuel elements are damaged or not and the number of the damaged fuel elements according to the shape of the curve. The release behavior of inert gas atoms into the coolant within the air gap between the fuel element cladding and the fuel element pellet is hardly affected by the crevasse size and crevasse location of the fuel element. Therefore, according to the evaluation method provided by the embodiment of the invention, the activity of Xe-133 is taken as a basis, whether the fuel elements in the pressurized water reactor are damaged or not and