scholarly journals Nuclear Reactor Thermal Expansion Reactivity Effect Determination Using Finite Element Analysis Coupled with Monte Carlo Neutron Transport Analysis

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chad Pope ◽  
Edward Lum
2016 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 269-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hassan S. Hedia ◽  
Saad M. Aldousari ◽  
Ahmed K. Abdellatif ◽  
Gamal S. Abdelhaffez

1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Cragun ◽  
Larry L. Howell

Abstract Thermomechanical in-plane microactuators (TIMs) have been designed, modeled, fabricated, and tested. TIMs offer an alternative to arrays of smaller thermal actuators to obtain high output forces. The design is easily modified to obtain the desired output force or deflection for specific applications. The operational principle is based on the symmetrical thermal expansion of variable cross sections of the surface micromachined microdevice. Sixteen configurations of TIMs were fabricated of polysilicon. Finite element analysis models were used to predict the deflection and output force for the actuators. Experimental results were also recorded for all sixteen configurations, including deflections and output forces up to 20 micron and 35 dyne.


Author(s):  
Francis H. Ku ◽  
Pete C. Riccardella

This paper presents a fast finite element analysis (FEA) model to efficiently predict the residual stresses in a feeder elbow in a CANDU nuclear reactor coolant system throughout the various stages of the manufacturing and welding processes, including elbow forming, Grayloc hub weld, and weld overlay application. The finite element (FE) method employs optimized FEA procedure along with three-dimensional (3-D) elastic-plastic technology and large deformation capability to predict the residual stresses due to the feeder forming and various welding processes. The results demonstrate that the fast FEA method captures the residual stress trends with acceptable accuracy and, hence, provides an efficient and practical tool for performing complicated parametric 3-D weld residual stress studies.


Author(s):  
David Ross-Pinnock ◽  
Glen Mullineux

Control of temperature in large-scale manufacturing environments is not always practical or economical, introducing thermal effects including variation in ambient refractive index and thermal expansion. Thermal expansion is one of the largest contributors to measurement uncertainty; however, temperature distributions are not widely measured. Uncertainties can also be introduced in scaling to standard temperature. For more complex temperature distributions with non-linear temperature gradients, uniform scaling is unrealistic. Deformations have been measured photogrammetrically in two thermally challenging scenarios with localised heating. Extended temperature measurement has been tested with finite element analysis to assess a compensation methodology for coordinate measurement. This has been compared to commonly used uniform scaling and has outperformed this with a highly simplified finite element analysis simulation in scaling a number of coordinates at once. This work highlighted the need for focus on reproducible temperature measurement for dimensional measurement in non-standard environments.


2014 ◽  
Vol 81 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaofeng Chen ◽  
Bin Chen

Cells are subjected to cyclic loads under physiological conditions, which regulate cellular structures and functions. Recently, it was demonstrated that cells on substrates reoriented nearly perpendicular to the stretch direction in response to uni-axial cyclic stretches. Though various theories were proposed to explain this observation, the underlying mechanism, especially at the molecular level, is still elusive. To provide insights into this intriguing observation, we employ a coupled finite element analysis (FEA) and Monte Carlo method to investigate the stability of a cluster of slip bonds upon cyclic loads. Our simulation results indicate that the cluster can become unstable upon cyclic loads and there exist two characteristic failure modes: gradual sliding with a relatively long lifetime versus catastrophic failure with a relatively short lifetime. We also find that the lifetime of the bond cluster, in many cases, decreases with increasing stretch amplitude and also decreases with increasing cyclic frequency, which appears to saturate at high cyclic frequencies. These results are consistent with the experimental reports. This work suggests the possible role of slip bonds in cellular reorientation upon cyclic stretch.


Author(s):  
Chensong Dong

The coefficients of thermal expansion (CTEs) of fiber reinforced composites play an important role in the design and analysis of composite structures. Since the thermal expansion coefficients of polymer matrix materials are typically much higher than those of fibers, and the fiber often exhibits anisotropic thermal and mechanical properties, the stress induced in the composite due to temperature change is very complex. Large discrepancies exist among the analytical models for the transverse CTE of unidirectional composites. Hence, it is problematic when choosing a suitable model. With the development of computer technologies, finite element analysis (FEA) proved its effectiveness in calculating the effective CTE of composites. In this study, the transverse CTEs of unidirectional carbon fiber composites were calculated by finite element analysis using a representative unit cell. The analytical micromechanical models from literature were compared against the FEA data. It shows that Hashin’s concentric cylinder model is the best. However, it is inconvenient for practical applications due to the amount of computation. In this study, based on the FEA data, an engineering model for predicting the transverse CTE of unidirectional composites was developed by regression analysis. This model was validated against the FEA and experimental data. It shows that the developed model provides a simple and accurate approach to calculate the transverse CTE of unidirectional composites.


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