Computational prediction of dust production in graphite moderated pebble bed reactors

The scope of the work reported here, which is the computational study of graphite wear behavior, supports the Nuclear Engineering University Programs project "Experimental Study and Computational Simulations of Key Pebble Bed Thermomechanics Issues for Design and Safety" funded by the US Department of Energy.;In this work, modeling and simulating the contact mechanics, as anticipated in a PBR configuration, is carried out for the purpose of assessing the amount of dust generated during a full power operation year of a PBR. A methodology that encompasses finite element analysis (FEA) and micromechanics of wear is developed to address the issue of dust production and its quantification. Particularly, the phenomenon of wear and change of its rate with sliding length is the main focus of this dissertation.;This work studies the wear properties of graphite by simulating pebble motion and interactions of a specific type of nuclear grade graphite, IG-11. This study consists of two perspectives: macroscale stress analysis and microscale analysis of wear mechanisms. The first is a set of FEA simulations considering pebble-pebble frictional contact. In these simulations, the mass of generated graphite particulates due to frictional contact is calculated by incorporating FEA results into Archard's equation, which is a linear correlation between wear mass and wear length. However, the experimental data by Johnson, University of Idaho, revealed that the wear rate of graphite decreases with sliding length. This is because the surfaces of the graphite pebbles become smoother over time, which results in a gradual decrease in wear rate. In order to address the change in wear rate, a more detailed analysis of wear mechanisms at room temperature is presented. In this microscale study, the wear behavior of graphite at the asperity level is studied by simulating the contact between asperities of facing surfaces. By introducing the effect of asperity removal on wear rate, a nonlinear wear rate is obtained.;The nonlinear wear law proposed in this study serves as a model to predict the effect of changing surface topology on the wear behavior of graphite. This tribological model is valid for applications where mass removal is in the form of powder formation rather than flake or chip formation.;Dust explosion tests performed by Poulsen, University of Idaho, under the same project, have revealed that the smallest amount of graphite dust mass that can lead to explosions is three orders of magnitudes larger than the maximum amount predicted to be generated in the present work. Therefore, it is concluded that pebble-pebble frictional contact is not a plausible source of dust generation and subsequent explosion hazard under normal operating conditions or even accident scenarios. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).