Mechanical and experimental investigation on nuclear fuel fretting

A mechanical approach to the nuclear fuel fretting problem is studied in this paper to find a possible and efficient way of a wear restraint. Two different contours of the spacer grid spring and dimple were developed to increase the contact area. Fretting wear experiments were carried out for the developed springs and tube specimens. Contact forces of 10 and 30 N, and slip displacements of 50–100 μm were applied under the environment of air as well as water at room temperature. Wear scars on the rods were examined to observe the effect of the mechanical approach on the wear. Especially, the influence of a contour deviation which occurred during fabrication and the wear particle accumulation in the clearance region were investigated in detail. It was found that the contact shape influenced the feature and the behavior of the length, width and volumetric shape of the wear. For the model of fuel fretting wear, equivalent depth (De) is suggested as a new parameter that can represent the wear severity.