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At least 325 records · Page 18
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2018

Potential Research and Development Opportunities for Light Water Reactor Spent Nuclear Fuel at INL

This report documents the commercial spent nuclear fuel currently in storage at Idaho National Laboratory with a specific focus on the potential research and development (R&D) opportunities for this material. Commercial spent nuclear fuel is stored in dry casks on the INL site at the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center (INTEC, formerly the Idaho Chemical Processing Plant or ICPP). This spent fuel was part of the DOE-industry cooperative dry cask demonstration project that began in 1983 and from historical fuel testing and treatment activities that had been performed at the Test Area North (TAN)-607 facility. Most of the fuel is “low burnup,” but given that it was removed from the respective reactors between 1970 and 1985, it was representative for its time. The majority of the fuel is of the 15×15 Westinghouse PWR variety, though additional fuel types (e.g., TN-BRP) and configurations are also stored. Potential R&D opportunities identified are (1) the REA-2023 cask, (2) the TN-BRP cask, and (3) the Castor V/21 cask. Fuel from the TN-24P may be an alternative to the intact assemblies in the Castor V/21. Specifically, the REA-2023 cask contains 9 rods that have been exposed to air since 2005. These rods have a detailed pre-loading characterization and thus any changes in corrosion or geometry can most likely be attributed to the storage environment. In addition, similar rods to the nine in REA-2023 reside in the Castor V/21 cask whose environment has been maintained with inert nitrogen. The Castor V/21 cask also contains intact PWR assemblies that could be used to perform limited confirmation of the pyroprocessing approach. An alternative to the use of the Castor assemblies for pyroprocessing is the consolidated fuel that is stored in the TN-24P, which would not require removal from the assembly grid since it has already been packaged in accessible two-piece shell strongback containers. The TN-BRP cask contains a number of Gd-doped, low burnup assemblies that could be of use to validate code packages used to justify burnup-up credit for boiling water reactors (BWRs). The INL dry casks are stored on the CPP-2707 pad at INTEC, adjacent to the CPP-603 Irradiated Fuel Storage Facility, which incorporates a dry hot cell that has the potential to receive a full scale commercial cask of the types identified. Several evaluations have been made regarding this task, including full scale mockup testing of the physical clearances required to remove and handle fuel assemblies and components. A proposed schedule of 14 months and cost of $5.3 million was the outcome of analysis performed by Fluor Idaho and is included as Appendix A & B. In addition to the spent fuel at INL, there is also a full-scale mockup assembly that was fabricated for the Protypical Consolidation Demonstration Project to validate fuel rod consolidation approaches. The assembly was fabricated by Westinghouse as a 15 x 15 PWR, using Zircaloy-4 tubing and steel end fittings in accordance with product specifications. The only departure from specification is the use of copper metal in lieu of uranium oxide pellets to achieve a weight that is within 10% of the standard.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Development of the Licensing Procedure and Regulatory Framework for the Spent Fuel Storage facility in Korea - 16423

The Public Engagement Commission on SNF management (PECOS) published the recommendation report on the spent fuel management of Korea in June, 2015. Based on this report, the future national policy for spent fuel management of Korea has been established, taking into consideration the national/international trends on policy and technology development. Regardless of the recommendation report of PECOS, Spent fuel storage casks are necessary in Korea. Therefore, various types of spent fuel storage casks are now being developed by Korea vendors. For example, Concrete storage casks and dual purpose metal casks are now under development by the KORAD (Korea Radioactive waste agency) for future use in the interim storage facility. Unfortunately, there is no independent licensing procedure for spent fuel storage casks in Nuclear Safety Act (NSA) because is the casks are considered an integral part of the interim storage facility safety equipment. Furthermore, the definition of radioactive waste in the NSA was changed recently. Now, spent fuel is separated from the definition of 'radioactive waste'. Spent fuel can only become radioactive waste by the decision through the meeting of the relative ministers of Korea government. For that reason, the licensing procedure for interim spent fuel storage facilities was separated from the current 'disposal facility, etc.' in accordance with the article 63 of NSA. The aim of this study is to develop the licensing procedure for the storage cask, and also to develop a revised draft of interim storage facility procedure within the NSA. Once this independent licensing procedure on the spent fuel storage cask is introduced to the NSA, it is expected that developers or operators can develop and commercialize the storage cask in Korea. In this study, an independent licensing procedure for the spent fuel storage facility was developed including the storage cask licensing procedure for the NSA. The procedure was composed of the permit for construction and operation of interim storage facility, criteria for permit, inspection criteria, periodic safety review, and decommissioning criteria, etc. The detailed contents of these requirements were also developed to introduce the regulatory framework for the interim storage facility. Particularly, periodic safety review and decommissioning criteria were developed in accordance with the recommendation of IRRS (International Regulatory Review Service) of IAEA. The developed licensing procedure for spent fuel storage facility will be introduced in NSA in response to the revised definition of NSA and the recommendation report of PECOS. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2019

Support of UJV Rez, a. s. for Shipments of Spent Nuclear Fuel Within the M3 Program - 19035

In 2005, UJV Rez, a. s. (UJV, the former Nuclear Research Institute Rez), Czech Republic joined the Russian Research Reactor Fuel Return (RRRFR) program under the US-Russian Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) (now Material Management and Minimization program, M{sup 3}). The primary goal of the program is to advance nuclear nonproliferation objectives encouraging eligible countries to convert their research reactors from highly enriched uranium (HEU) to low enriched uranium (LEU) fuel and eliminating stockpiles of HEU. UJV's daughter company, Research Centre Rez, operates the LVR-15 research reactor with output of 10 MWth, which has been in operation since 1957. After more than 50 years of operation of the reactor, a large amount of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) of Russian origin had been accumulated. The SKODA VPVR/M high capacity casks were used for SNF shipment from the LVR-15 research reactor back to the Russian Federation (RF). The cask has a capacity of 36 fuel assemblies, and 16 casks are available. This means that 576 FA can be transported in one shipment. Two SNF shipments of HEU and LEU SNF from UJV were realized in 2007 and 2013. After the shipments were completed, only LEU nuclear fuel remained on the territory of the Czech Republic. Proven to be an excellent and very sophisticated system for SNF transportation, the SKODA VPVR/M casks were further employed for SNF shipments from Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Serbia, Vietnam, Uzbekistan and Georgia to Russia. Some shipments were carried out as air shipments with use of the TUK-145/C cask system developed in Russia that included the SKODA cask. In 2016, the new SKODA MNSR casks were developed on the base of the SKODA VPVR/M casks in the Czech Republic and currently are being employed in the shipments of HEU cores of Chinese Miniature Neutron Source Reactors (MNSR) to China. The TUK-145/C-MNSR cask system developed in Russia is used for air transportation. The shipment from Ghana was carried out in 2016; the shipment from Nigeria is under realization. Shipments from Syria, Iraq and Pakistan are planned. Sixteen shipments from eleven countries using a total of 109 SKODA casks have already been completed without any incident or accident and more than 3500 fuel assemblies or cores have been shipped to Russia and China. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗