Selection of Fuel Rods for Analyses

In order to ensure the fuel integrities for all fuel rods in a core, the fuel analysis needs to be carried out for all fuel rods in the core, but in practice this is too time-consuming. Here, ten different fuel rods (one containing fresh fuel and nine containing irradiated fuel of different bumups) are selected for fuel analyses, so that essentially, all fuel rods in the core are covered in evaluating the fuel integrity. 

The Super LWR core is designed from three-cycle fuel. Hence, the fuel rods to be analyzed need to represent fuel in each of the three cycles as weU as fresh fuel. For this purpose, the fuel rods to be analyzed are categorized into four groups the fresh fuel, the first cycle fuel, the second cycle fuel, and the third cycle fuel. To represent each category of irradiated fuel, three different fuel rods are selected, the high-power fuel, midpower fuel, and the low-power fuel rods. 

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