Evaluation of Effect of Fuel Assembly Loading Patterns on Thermal and Shielding Performance of a Spent Fuel Storage/Transportation Cask

Cuta, Judith M ; Jenquin, Urban P ; McKinnon, Mikal A

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (U.S.)

关键词: Shielding;    Loading;    Source Terms;    Spent Fuel Storage;    Spent Fuel Casks;   

DOI  :  10.2172/789909
RP-ID  :  PNNL-13583
RP-ID  :  AC06-76RLO1830
RP-ID  :  789909

美国|英语

来源: UNT Digital Library

【 摘 要 】

The licensing of spent fuel storage casks is generally based on conservative analyses that assume a storage system being uniformly loaded with design basis fuel. The design basis fuel typically assumes a maximum assembly enrichment, maximum burn up, and minimum cooling time. These conditions set the maximum decay heat loads and radioactive source terms for the design. Recognizing that reactor spent fuel pools hold spent fuel with an array of initial enrichments, burners, and cooling times, this study was performed to evaluate the effect of load pattern on peak cladding temperature and cask surface dose rate. Based on the analysis, the authors concluded that load patterns could be used to reduce peak cladding temperatures in a cask without adversely impacting the surface dose rates.