Rod internal pressure of spent nuclear fuel and its effects on cladding degradation during dry storage

Temperature and hoop stress limits have been used to prevent the gross rupture of spent nuclear fuel during dry storage. The stress due to rod internal pressure can induce cladding degradation such as creep, hydride reorientation, and delayed hydride cracking. Creep is a self-limiting phenomenon in a dry storage system; in contrast, hydride reorientation and delayed hydride cracking are potential degradation mechanisms activated at low temperatures when the cladding material is brittle. In this work, a conservative rod internal pressure and corresponding hoop stress were calculated using FRAPCON-4.0 fuel performance code. Based on the hoop stresses during storage, a study on the onset of hydride reorientation and delayed hydride cracking in spent nuclear fuel was conducted under the current storage guidelines. Hydride reorientation is hard to occur in most of the low burn-up fuel while some high burn-up fuel can experience hydride reorientation, but their effect may not be significant. On the other hand, delayed hydride cracking will not occur in spent nuclear fuel from pressurized water reactor; however, there is a lack of confirmatory data on threshold intensity factor for delayed hydride cracking and crack size distribution in the fuel.