Finite Element Simulation for Equivalent Elastic Properties of Dispersion Fuel Elements

The safety and reliability of the dispersion fuel elements in the reactors are the focus of relative researches.They depend on the mechanical property of the fuel elements.In the present work,several representative volume elements are chosen from the fuel elements according to the arrangement styles of the fuel particles in the matrix and the finite element analysis is applied to study the effective elastic property of the fuel element.The effects of temperature and volume fraction of the fuel particles on the property are investigated in details.As the particles are distributed randomly,the numerical results are compared with several analytical equations,and the comparison indicates that the Mori-Tanaka model provides the best agreement with the FEM data.