Overview of methods to increase dryout power in CANDU fuel bundles

• Small changes in bundle geometry can have noticeable effects on the bundle CHF.
• Rod spacing devices can results in increases of over 200% in CHF.
• CHF enhancement decays exponentially downstream from spacers.
• CHF-enhancing bundle appendages also increase the post-CHF heat transfer.

In CANDU reactors some degradation in the CCP (critical channel power, or power corresponding to the first occurrence of CHF in any fuel channel) will occur with time because of ageing effects such as pressure-tube diametral creep, increase in reactor inlet-header temperature, increased hydraulic resistance of feeders. To compensate for the ageing effects, various options for recovering the loss in CCP are described in this paper. They include: (i) increasing the bundle heated perimeter, (ii) optimizing the bundle configuration, (iii) optimizing core flow and flux distribution, (iv) reducing the bundle hydraulic resistance, (v) use of CHF-enhancing bundle appendages, (vi) more precise experimentation, and (vii) redefining CHF. The increase in CHF power has been quantified based on experiments on full-scale bundles and subchannel code predictions. The application of several of these CHF enhancement principles has been used in the development of the 43-rod CANFLEX bundle.