Space for a fuel assembly of a nuclear power station

US6320925A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• Siemens Aktiengesellschaft · DE

Inventors

• Reiner Manzel · Nürnberg, DE
• Werner Jahreiss · Nürnberg, DE
• Norbert Schmidt · Eppstein, DE
• Josef Steven · Fairview Avenue, DE
• Peter Dewes · Erlangen, DE
• Friedrich Garzarolli · Edenkoben, DE
• Erhard Ortlieb · Kalchreuth, DE
• Franz-Josef Bokers · Fürth, DE
• Matthias Rudolph · Weisendorf, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: Jan 27, 1999
• Grant date: Nov 20, 2001
• Expiry date: Jan 27, 2019

Classification

• Technology area (CPC Y): Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
• CPC primary: Y02E30/30
• WIPO field: Engines, pumps, turbines
• WIPO sector: Mechanical engineering

Abstract

A spacer of a fuel assembly having intersecting webs undergoes reduced longitudinal expansion as a result of corrosion during an operating period. The webs have intersection locations at which assembly gaps are provided. The assembly gaps have widths which correspond essentially, at most over a fraction of their total length, to the wall thickness of an intersecting web, but are wider in a remaining region. Since corrosion layers growing from an edge of an assembly gap toward the intersecting web cannot touch the web, no solid pressure, which could lead to longitudinal expansion, builds up.