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SYSTEMS AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY Sukhbinder Singh, Frazer-Nash Consultancy Development of a Finite Element Visualisation Tool for Post-Processing Graphite.

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Presentation on theme: "SYSTEMS AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY Sukhbinder Singh, Frazer-Nash Consultancy Development of a Finite Element Visualisation Tool for Post-Processing Graphite."— Presentation transcript:

1 SYSTEMS AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY Sukhbinder Singh, Frazer-Nash Consultancy Development of a Finite Element Visualisation Tool for Post-Processing Graphite Weight loss Predictions

2 © Frazer-Nash Consultancy Ltd 2011. All rights reserved. SYSTEMS AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY Contents  Background to Graphite  Background to FEAT  Objective of Tool  Mesh Generation  Creating Contour Plots  Example Meshes  Future Development  Summary

3 © Frazer-Nash Consultancy Ltd 2011. All rights reserved. SYSTEMS AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY Graphite in the UK Nuclear Industry  Favourable neutron scattering cross-section at fast neutron energies  High thermal and electrical Conductivity  Use in Windscale piles  Civil use in Magnox and AGR fleet, new build reactors are all PWR’s

4 © Frazer-Nash Consultancy Ltd 2011. All rights reserved. SYSTEMS AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY Graphite Weight loss  Conditions in an AGR, are favourable for radiolytic oxidation of graphite via the interaction with a free radical  Weight loss results in a reduction in graphite density leading to reduced strength and less effective moderation  Loss of strength can lead to brick-cracking and potentially core distortion preventing control rod insertion during reactor transients, for example  Weight loss mechanism is modelled using FEAT-Graphite

5 © Frazer-Nash Consultancy Ltd 2011. All rights reserved. SYSTEMS AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY FEAT-Graphite  FEAT – Finite Element Analysis Toolbox  FEAT-DIFFUSE6 – Weight loss and Field Variables  FEAT-COILU – Stress Analysis and Properties

6 © Frazer-Nash Consultancy Ltd 2011. All rights reserved. SYSTEMS AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY Finite Element Method  Model Brick as elements made up of nodes, edges and faces  Set boundary conditions  Model physics equations and calculate solution  Save results at certain time steps

7 © Frazer-Nash Consultancy Ltd 2011. All rights reserved. SYSTEMS AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY Objective of Tool  Investigate the possibility of using MATLAB to view FEAT data and plot data in a way to minimise user interaction

8 © Frazer-Nash Consultancy Ltd 2011. All rights reserved. SYSTEMS AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY Reading FRFs  Can save whole FRFs into MATLAB structure file  Select what to save  Save space on drive  View raw numbers in MATLAB and split into sections  Statistical analysis of variable  Possible to see how variable changes over time

9 © Frazer-Nash Consultancy Ltd 2011. All rights reserved. SYSTEMS AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY Mesh Generation - Elements  The brick is split into many different elements  Elements can be of different shapes, only wedges and bricks are used to model the graphite bricks Type 54 - BrickType 53 - Wedge

10 © Frazer-Nash Consultancy Ltd 2011. All rights reserved. SYSTEMS AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY Mesh Generation – Brick Geometry Hinkley Point B Mesh Torness Mesh

11 © Frazer-Nash Consultancy Ltd 2011. All rights reserved. SYSTEMS AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY Creating Contour Plots  Mapping distribution of the variable onto a plane on the brick  Main use of the tool  Constant height where nodes exist  Interpolation to any height

12 © Frazer-Nash Consultancy Ltd 2011. All rights reserved. SYSTEMS AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY Example Meshes: Axial Slice - HPB

13 © Frazer-Nash Consultancy Ltd 2011. All rights reserved. SYSTEMS AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY Example Meshes: Axial Slice - TOR

14 © Frazer-Nash Consultancy Ltd 2011. All rights reserved. SYSTEMS AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY Example Meshes: Polar Axial Slice - HPB

15 © Frazer-Nash Consultancy Ltd 2011. All rights reserved. SYSTEMS AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY Non-Weight loss Plots – Cumulative Dose

16 © Frazer-Nash Consultancy Ltd 2011. All rights reserved. SYSTEMS AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY Non-Weight loss Plots – Temperature

17 © Frazer-Nash Consultancy Ltd 2011. All rights reserved. SYSTEMS AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY Slices through the height of the brick  Having been able to calculate how to slices at a constant height, next step was to do slices with varying heights:-  Azimuthal lines  Radial lines  User Defined lines

18 © Frazer-Nash Consultancy Ltd 2011. All rights reserved. SYSTEMS AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY Example: Radial Slice

19 © Frazer-Nash Consultancy Ltd 2011. All rights reserved. SYSTEMS AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY Further Development  GUI  Create software guidance for users  Able to select nodes and follow variation of that node over time  Volume and object selection  Usable by any FEAT mesh – not just FEAT-Graphite  Weight loss over the whole brick

20 © Frazer-Nash Consultancy Ltd 2011. All rights reserved. SYSTEMS AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY Summary of Tool Capabilities  Read in FRF and store data in a fashion which can be used to produce contour plots  Recreate the mesh stored in the FRF  Create contour plots of any variable across any height of the brick  Create vertical slices across the brick at constant radius, angles and between user defined points

21 SYSTEMS AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY www.fnc.co.uk Thank you for listening – Any Questions?


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