Hitachi, Ltd.

Shin-ichi Kashiwai

Osamu Yokomizo

Koji Nishida

Akihito Orii

Yasuhiro Masuhara

Tatsuo Hayashi

Toshitsugu Nakao

Akio Tomiyama

Shigeto Murata

Toru Kanazawa

Junichi Yamashita

Junjiro Nakajima

Kumiaki Moriya

Yuichiro Yoshimoto

Kotaro Inoue

Hiromasa Hirakawa

Yoshishige Kawada

An object of the present invention is to provide a boiling water reactor wherein two phase flow instability in a fuel assembly occurs scarcely. A bottom flow path is formed beneath a partition plate which is supported by control rod driving mechanism housings in a reactor pressure vessel, and coolant guide tubes which open beneath the partition plate stands perpendicularly on the partition plate. An upper end portion of the coolant guide tube is restrained at outer periphery by a fixing portion of a square grid, and a coolant entrance of a fuel assembly is connected through to the coolant guide tube. Pressure loss of the coolant decreases and flow instability of the coolant in the fuel assembly occurs scarcely, lowering of a critical power ratio at a pump trip can be suppressed.

Boiling water reactor

A fuel assembly included a plurality of fuel rods, fuel spacers for maintaining gaps between the fuel rods and a channel box. The channel box includes spacer support portions projecting inwardly from an inner surface of the channel box and supporting the fuel spacer in a transverse direction and creep deformation inhibition portions disposed at the lower end portion of the channel box and projecting inwardly. The distance between the spacer support portions disposed to oppose one another in a horizontal direction is smaller than the distance between the creep deformation inhibition portions opposing one another in the horizontal direction.

Fuel assembly, channel box, production method of channel box, and core

In a fuel assembly having fuel rods inserted into regularly arranged cells of a fuel spacer which keeps the fuel rods correctly spaced from one another and has spacer elements disposed in a plurality of stages in the longitudinal direction of the fuel rods, the fuel spacer comprises vanes formed on the cells in such a manner that each vane is bent from a cut formed in a part of the side wall of the cell. The vanes obliquely project into the corresponding spaces between adjacent fuel rods and allow a coolant flowing through the spaces and forming two-phase flows to generate swirling flows toward the fuel rods. The fuel spacer may alternatively comprise either thin-walled cylinders having built-in vanes or spiral vanes, which are fixed to the spacer that has not been subjected to any direct machining. Also disclosed is a fuel assembly provided with any of the above-described fuel spacers. The arrangement of the present invention enables, while assuring a sufficient strength for maintaining fuel rods in their correct position, the transfer of heat from the fuel rods to the coolant to be promoted so as to raise the allowable power level of the fuel assembly, and enables the void ratio to be lowered so as to increase the reactivity.

Fuel assembly and fuel spacer

A fuel assembly has a water rod which consists of a coolant ascending path and a coolant descending path, the coolant ascending path opening below a fuel support of a lower tie plate, the coolant descending path opening above the fuel support and adapted to guide downwardly the coolant that has flowed up the coolant ascending path to the upper portion of the water rod. The lateral cross section of the coolant ascending path is more than 25 times that of the coolant descending path. The nuclear reactor with these fuel assemblies loaded in the core is operated as follows. After startup of the reactor when the reactor power is low, all the control rods inserted in the core are withdrawn completely. Then, the reactor power is controlled by regulating a liquid level formed in the water rods. This reactor operation method prolongs the lifetime of the control rods, thereby reducing the number of times they have to be replaced.

Nuclear reactor having an ascending cooling path much greater than the

A fuel assembly according to the present invention is formed in such a manner that the small diameter portion of an upper end plug of a fuel rod is inserted into a boss of an upper tie-plate. The upper end plug includes a small diameter portion and a large diameter portion which is disposed below the former. An expansion spring in disposed in the small diameter portion of the upper end plug. A cover member surrounding this expansion spring is disposed in the large diameter portion of the upper end plug, and extends upwardly. Since the cover member surrounds the expansion spring, pressure loss caused by the expansion spring can be reduced.

Fuel assembly

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Hitachi, Japan

Shin-ichi Kashiwai