Fuel assembly for nuclear reactors
AssigneeKabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
InventorsMakoto Ueda, Toru Mitsutake, Koichi Sakurada, Koji Hiraiwa, Yasuhiro Hattori, Mamoru Nagano, Hironori Echigoya
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A fuel assembly for a nuclear reactor comprises a fuel bundle in which a number of fuel rods are regularly arranged and a channel box surrounding the outer periphery of the fuel bundle. The interior of the channel box is designed so that the inner cross sectional area of the channel box increases from the upstream side of the coolant flow towards the downstream side thereof, for example, by stepwisely shaving the inner surface of the channel box. The corner portions of the channel box may be chamfered to improve the stress due to the inner pressure.
Claims8
A fuel assembly for a nuclear reactor comprising:
- a fuel bundle in which a plurality of fuel rods are arranged by utilizing spacer means;
- a channel box disposed so as to surround an outer periphery of said fuel bundle and conduct a coolant flow, said channel box including a wall structure having a thickness gradually decreasing from the upstream side of the coolant flow towards the downstream side thereof so that an inner cross sectional area of the channel box increases from an upstream side of the coolant flow towards the downstream side thereof;
- and
- means for maintaining a distance between the spacer means and an inner surface of the channel box wall structure.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.