•We developed a two-beam model to represent the nonlinear friction in the fuel assembly.•The proposed model can capture the variation of the resonance frequency of the fuel assembly as the seismic load increases.•The proposed model can capture the hysteresis behavior of the fuel assembly under cyclic loads. Seismic events may lead to vibrations of fuel assemblies in the nuclear reactor cores, thus the dynamic analysis of such vibration of fuel assemblies is essential for the safety design of nuclear reactor plant. In this paper, by considering the friction between fuel pins, we proposed a nonlinear mechanical model for both static and dynamic analysis of fuel assemblies for pressurized water reactor (PWR). The proposed model used a two-beam structure with frictional units to mimic friction and possible contacts in the pin bundle during the static and dynamic loading in the air. By using this approach, we could characterize not only the hysteresis loop during the static bending test (the static slingshot experiment), but also the decrease of resonance frequency with increase of seismic load. Further, maximum contact forces during the seismic test are compared with experiment at various impact locations, and the predictions closely match the experimental findings, affirming the scientific validity and accuracy of the proposed model. The proposed model can be further used to analyzing seismic behavior of the entire reactor core structure, providing valuable insights for assessing reactor structural safety and predictive hazard assessments.