• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.411-428
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• 2022

Given the domestic situation, all nuclear power plants are located at the seaside, where interim storage sites are also likely to be located and maritime transportation is considered inevitable. Currently, Korea does not have an independently developed maritime transportation risk assessment code, and no research has been conducted to evaluate the release rate of radioactive waste from a submerged transportation cask in the sea. Therefore, secure technology is necessary to assess the impact of immersion accidents and establish a regulatory framework to assess, mitigate, and prevent maritime transportation accidents causing serious radiological consequences. The flow rate through a gap in a containment boundary should be calculated to determine the accurate release rate of radionuclides. The fluid flow through the micro-scale gap can be evaluated by combining the flow inside and outside the transportation cask. In this study, detailed computational fluid dynamic and simplified models are constructed to evaluate the internal flow in a transportation cask and to capture the flow and heat transfer around the transportation cask in the sea, respectively. In the future, fluid flow through the gap will be evaluated by coupling the models developed in this study.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.547-556
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• 2014

Korea expects a shortage in storage capacity for spent fuels at reactor sites. Therefore, a need for more metal and/or concrete casks for storage systems is anticipated for either the reactor site or away from the reactor for interim storage. For the purpose of interim storage and transportation, a dual purpose metal cask that can load 21 spent fuel assemblies is being developed by Korea Radioactive Waste Management Corporation (KRMC) in Korea. At first the gamma and neutron flux for the design basis fuel were determined assuming in-core environment (the temperature, pressure, etc. of the moderator, boron, cladding, $UO_2$ pellets) in which the design basis fuel is loaded, as input data. The evaluation simulated burnup up to 45,000 MWD/MTU and decay during ten years of cooling using the SAS2H/OGIGEN-S module of the SCALE5.1 system. The results from the source term evaluation were used as input data for the final shielding evaluation utilizing the MCNP Code, which yielded the effective dose rate. The design of the cask is based on the safety requirements for normal storage conditions under 10 CFR Part 72. A radiation shielding analysis of the metal storage cask optimized for loading 21 design basis fuels was performed for two cases; one for a single cask and the other for a $2{\times}10$ cask array. For the single cask, dose rates at the external surface of the metal cask, 1m and 2m away from the cask surface, were evaluated. For the $2{\times}10$ cask array, dose rates at the center point of the array and at the center of the casks' height were evaluated. The results of the shielding analysis for the single cask show that dose rates were considerably higher at the lower side (from the bottom of the cask to the bottom of the neutron shielding) of the cask, at over 2mSv/hr at the external surface of the cask. However, this is not considered to be a significant issue since additional shielding will be installed at the storage facility. The shielding analysis results for the $2{\times}10$ cask array showed exponential decrease with distance off the sources. The controlled area boundary was calculated to be approximately 280m from the array, with a dose rate of 25mrem/yr. Actual dose rates within the controlled area boundary will be lower than 25mrem/yr, due to the decay of radioactivity of spent fuel in storage.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.435-443
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• 2016

This paper describes the development of a dry operation process for PWR spent nuclear fuel, which is currently stored in the domestic NPP's storage pool, using a dual purpose metal cask. Domestic NNPs have had experience with wet type transportation of PWR spent nuclear fuel between neighboring NPPs since the early 1990s, but no experience with dry type operation. For this reason, we developed a specific operation process and also confirmed the safety of the major cask components and its spent nuclear fuel during the dual purpose metal cask operation process. We also describe the short term operation process that was established to be completed within 21 hours and propose the allowable working time for each step (15 hours for wet process, 3 hours for drain process and 3 hours for vacuum drying process).

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2017.05a
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• pp.153-154
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• 2017

The thermal analysis of transportation and storage cask for SNF was conducted during short term loading operations for forced gas drying condition. The fuel cladding temperature in 6 regions of SNF in the cask during the short term loading operations for forced gas drying condition is shown in the Fig. 3. The thermal analysis results of calculated maximum cladding temperature in each process demonstrate that operating scenario of TFD in detailed design maintain well below the temperature limits of $400^{\circ}C$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.98-102
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• 2002

As the nuclear power plant has been operated continuously and increased gradually, transportation and storage of spent fuel are seriously considered nowadays. The transportation cask which contains radioactive material needs to be inspected about structural safety. About safety verification, description of IAEA Safety Standards states that cask must withstand hypothetical accident conditions. In this paper, 9m free drop impact analysis was performed for transportation cask and impact limiter by using the finite element methods. Furthermore, we obtained the dynamic behavior of wood to as compared with safety test results, and verified the safety of transportation cask.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.7
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• pp.1563-1570
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• 2017

In order to perform dry interim storage and transportation of the spent-fuel assemblies of the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, dual-purpose casks can be utilized. The effectiveness of different neutron-shield materials for the dual-purpose cask was analyzed through a set of calculations carried out using the Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) code. The dose rate for the dual-purpose cask utilizing the recently developed materials of $epoxy/clay/B_4C$ and $epoxy/clay/B_4C/carbon$ fiber was less than the allowable radiation level of 2 mSv/h at any point and 0.1 mSv/h at 2 m from the external surface of the cask. By utilization of $epoxy/clay/B_4C$ instead of an ethylene glycol/water mixture, the dose rates on the side surface of the cask due to neutron sources and consequent secondary gamma rays will be reduced by 17.5% and 10%, respectively. The overall dose rate in this case will be reduced by 11%.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.442-449
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• 2017

Risk management of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station decommissioning is a great challenge. In the present study, a risk management framework has been developed for the decommissioning work. It is applied to fuel assembly retrieval from Unit 3 spent fuel pool. Whole retrieval work is divided into three phases: preparation, retrieval, and transportation and storage. First of all, the end point has been established and the success path has been developed. Then, possible threats, which are internal/external and technical/societal/management, are identified and selected. "What can go wrong?" is a question about the failure scenario. The likelihoods and consequences for each scenario are roughly estimated. The whole decommissioning project will continue for several decades, i.e., long-term perspective is important. What should be emphasized is that we do not always have enough knowledge and experience of this kind. It is expected that the decommissioning can make steady and good progress in support of the proposed risk management framework. Thus, risk assessment and management are required, and the process needs to be updated in accordance with the most recent information and knowledge on the decommissioning works.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.141-154
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• 2015

In general, conventional criticality analysis for spent fuel transport/storage systems have been performed based on the assumption of fresh fuel concerning the potential uncertainties from number density calculations of actinide nuclides and fission products in spent fuel. However, these evaluation methods cause financial losses due to an excessive criticality margin. In order to overcome this disadvantage, many studies have recently been conducted to design and commercialize a transportation and storage cask applied to the Burnup Credit (BUC). This study conducted an assessment to ensure criticality safety for reactor operating parameters, axial burn-up profiles and misload accident conditions, which are the factors that are likely to affect criticality safety when the BUC is applied to the dual-purpose cask under development at the KOrea RADioactive waste agency (KORAD). As a result, it was found that criticality resulting from specific power, changed substantially and relied on conditions of low enrichment and high burn-up. Considering the end effect in the case of high burn-up produced a positive-definite result. In particular, the increment of maximum effective multiplication factors due to misloading was 0.18467, confirming that misload is a factor that must be taken into account when applying the BUC. The results of this study may therefore be utilized as references in developing technologies to apply the BUC to domestic models and operational procedures or preventing any misload accidents during the process of spent fuel loading.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.690-695
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• 2023

Recommendations are given to improve the efficiency of radiation protection of transport casks for SNF transportation. The attenuation of ${\gamma}$-quanta of long-lived isotopes ¹³⁴Cs, ^137mBa(¹³⁷Cs), ¹⁵⁴Eu and ⁶⁰Co by optimizing the thicknesses and arrangement of layers of Fe and Pb radiation shields of transport casks is studied. The fixed radiation shielding mass (fixed mass thickness) is chosen as the main optimization criterion. The effect of the placement order of Fe and Pb layers in a combined two-layer radiation shield with an equivalent thickness of 30 cm is studied in detail. It is shown that with the same mass thicknesses of the Fe and Pb layers, the placement of Fe in the first layer, and Pb - in the second one provides more than twofold attenuation of ${\gamma}$-quanta compared to the reverse placement: Pb - in the first layer, Fe - in the second. The increase in the efficiency of attenuation of ${\gamma}$-quanta for TC with combined shielding of Fe and Pb is shown to be achieved by designing the first layer of radiation shielding around the canister with SNF from Fe of the maximum possible thickness.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.73-80
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• 2011

The radiation shielding analysis for a Burnup-credit (BUC) cask designed under the management of Korea Radioactive Waste Management Corporation (KRMC) was performed to examine the contribution of each radiation source affecting dose rate distribution around the cask. Various radiation sources, which contain neutron and gamma-ray sources placed in active fuel region and the activation source, and imaginary nuclear fuel were all considered in the MCNP calculation model to realistically simulate the actual situations. It was found that the maximum external and surface dose rates of the spent fuel cask were satisfied with the domestic standards both in normal and accident conditions. In normal condition, the radiation dose rate distribution around the cask was mainly influenced by activation source ($^{60}Co$ radioisotope); in another case, the neutron emitted in active fuel region contributed about 90% to external dose rate at 1m distance from side surface of the cask. Besides, the contribution level of activation source was dramatically increased to the dose rates in top and bottom regions of the cask. From this study, it was recognized that the detailed investigation on the radiation sources should be performed conservatively and accurately in the process of radiation shielding analysis for a BUC cask.