ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the temperature profiles in the fuel and the cladding. During normal operation, the fuel centerline temperature is limited to about 2,200°C because higher fuel pin temperatures tend to release too many fission products into the fuel. Sometimes the cladding temperature is known and we would like to infer the fuel pin temperature from it. This approach is simpler than the previous approach because the convective heat transfer coefficient is not required at the cladding surface. In general, the fuel, the cladding, and the coolant temperatures are higher because more thermal energy is deposited in the coolant. In practice, many of the parameters that are used to calculate the core temperature profiles are not known with absolute precision. Once the subchannel temperatures are known, a temperature profile can be constructed showing all the fuel pin temperatures in the core.
