• Title/Summary/Keyword: Spent Nuclear Fuel Disposal Canister

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Creep Analysis for the Pressurized Water Reactor Spent Nuclear Fuel Disposal Canister (가압경수로 고준위페기물 처분용기에 대한 크립해석)

  • Ha Joon-Yong;Choi Jong-Won;Kwon Young-Joo
    • Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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    • v.17 no.4
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    • pp.413-421
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    • 2004
  • In this paper, a structural analysis for the pressurized water reactor(PWR) spent nuclear fuel disposal canister which is deposited under the 500m deep underground is carried out to predict the creep deformation of the canister while the underground water and swelling bentonite pressure are applied on the canister. Usually the creep deformation may be caused due to the Pressure and the high heat applied to the canister even though additional external loads are not applied to the canister. These creep deformations depend on the time. In this paper, oかy the underground water and bentonite swelling Pressure are considered for the creep deformation analysis of the canister, because the heat distribution inside canister due the spent fuel is not simple and depends on time. A proper creep function is adopted for the creep analysis. The creep analysis is carried out during $10^8$ seconds. The creep analysis results show that the creep strains are very small and these strains occur usually in the lid and bottom of the canister not in the cast iron insert. A much smaller strain is found in the cast iron insert. Hence, the creep deformation doesn't affect the structural safety of the canister, and also the creep stress which shows the stress relaxation phenomenon doesn't affect the structural safety of the canister.

Assessment of Corrosion Lifetime of a Copper Disposal Canister Based on the Finnish Posiva Methodology

  • Choi, Heui-Joo;Lee, Jongyoul;Cho, Dongkeun
    • Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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    • v.18 no.spc
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    • pp.51-62
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    • 2020
  • In this paper, an approach developed by the Finnish nuclear waste management organization, Posiva, for the construction license of a geological repository was reviewed. Furthermore, a computer program based on the approach was developed. By using the computer program, the lifetime of a copper disposal canister, which was a key engineered barrier of the geological repository, was predicted under the KAERI Underground Research Tunnel (KURT) geologic conditions. The computer program was developed considering the mass transport of corroding agents, such as oxygen and sulfide, through the buffer and backfill. Shortly after the closure of the repository, the corrosion depths of a copper canister due to oxygen in the pores of the buffer and backfill were calculated. Additionally, the long-term corrosion of a copper canister due to sulfide was analyzed in two cases: intact buffer and eroded buffer. Under various conditions of the engineered barrier, the corrosion lifetimes of the copper canister due to sulfide significantly exceeded one million years. Finally, this study shows that it is necessary to carefully characterize the transmissivity of rock and sulfide concentration during site characterization to accurately predict the canister lifetime.

Thermal Analyses of Deep Geological Disposal Cell With Heterogeneous Modeling of PLUS7 Spent Nuclear Fuel

  • Hyungju Yun;Min-Seok Kim;Manho Han;Seo-Yeon Cho
    • Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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    • v.21 no.4
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    • pp.517-529
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    • 2023
  • The objectives of this paper are: (1) to conduct the thermal analyses of the disposal cell using COMSOL Multiphysics; (2) to determine whether the design of the disposal cell satisfies the thermal design requirement; and (3) to evaluate the effect of design modifications on the temperature of the disposal cell. Specifically, the analysis incorporated a heterogeneous model of 236 fuel rod heat sources of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) to improve the reality of the modeling. In the reference case, the design, featuring 8 m between deposition holes and 30 m between deposition tunnels for 40 years of the SNF cooling time, did not meet the design requirement. For the first modified case, the designs with 9 m and 10 m between the deposition holes for the cooling time of 40 years and five spacings for 50 and 60 years were found to meet the requirement. For the second modified case, the designs with 35 m and 40 m between the deposition tunnels for 40 years, 25 m to 40 m for 50 years and five spacings for 60 years also met the requirement. This study contributes to the advancement of the thermal analysis technique of a disposal cell.

Thermal Analysis of a Retrievable CANDU Spent Fuel Disposal Tunnel (회수 가능 CANDU 사용후핵연료 처분터널에 대한 열 해석)

  • Cha, Jeong-Hun;Lee, Jong-Youl;Choi, Heui-Joo;Cho, Dong-Keun;Kim, Sang-Nyung;Youn, Bum-Soo;Ji, Joon-Suk
    • Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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    • v.6 no.2
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    • pp.119-128
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    • 2008
  • Thermal assessment of a new CANDU spent fuel disposal system, which improves the retrievability of the spent fuel and enhances the densification factor compared with the Korean Reference disposal System, is carried out in this study. The canisters for CANDU spent fuels are stored for long term and cooled by natural convection in the proposed disposal system for the retrievability. The steady state thermal analyses for proposed CANDU disposal system are carried out with the ANSYS 10.0 CFX code. The thermal analyses are performed through two steps. At the first step, the sensitivity of the disposal tunnel spacing is analysed. The differences of maximum temperatures by several tunnel spacings are calculated at three points in the disposal tunnel. The result shows that the differences of the temperature at the three points are almost negligible because 99% of the decay heat is removed by natural convection. At the second procedure, 60m tunnel spacing with a ventilation system instead of natural convection is considered. The result is applied to the calculation of the canister surface temperature in disposal tunnel as boundary conditions. Consequently, the average and the maximum surface temperature of disposal canisters are $79.9^{\circ}C$ and $119^{\circ}C$, respectively. The inner maximum temperature of a basket in the disposal canister is calculated as $140.9^{\circ}C$. The maximum temperature of the basket meets the thermal requirement for the CANDU spent fuel cladding.

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Thermal Stress Analysis of the Disposal Canister for Spent PWR Nuclear Fuels (가압경수로 고준위폐기물 처분용기의 열응력 해석)

  • 권영주;하준용;최종원
    • Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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    • v.15 no.3
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    • pp.471-480
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    • 2002
  • In this paper, the thermal stress analysis of spent nuclear fuel disposal canister in a deep repository at 500 m underground is carried out for the basic design of the canister. Since the nuclear fuel disposal usually emits much heat, a long term safe repository at a deep bedrock is used. Under this situation, the canister experiences the thermal load due to the heat generation of spent nuclear fuels in the basket. Hence, in this paper the thermal stress analysis is executed using the finite element method. The finite clement code Eot the analysis Is not written directly, but a commercial code, NISA, is used because of the complexity of the structure and the large number of elements required for the analysis. The analysis result shows that even though the thermal stress is added to the stress generated by the hydrostatic underground water pressure and the swelling pressure of the bentonite buffer, the total stress is still smaller than the yield stress of the cast iron. Hence, the canister is still structurally safe when the thermal loads we included in the external loads applied on the canister.

An Analysis on the Deep Geological Disposal Concepts Considering the Spent Fuel Length (사용후핵연료 길이에 따른 심지층 처분시스템 분석)

  • LEE, Jongyoul;KIM, Hyeona;LEE, Minsoo;CHOI, Heuijoo;KIM, Keonyoung
    • Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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    • v.13 no.3
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    • pp.201-209
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    • 2015
  • Currently, 23 nuclear power plants are in operation at Kori, Uljin, Younggwang and Wolsong site and a reference deep geological disposal system has been developed for the spent fuels generated by them. The reference spent fuel for this disposal system has 4.5wt% of initial enrichment, 55 GWd/MtU of burn-up, and 40 years of cooling time. In this paper, to improve disposal efficiency and economic feasibility, the characteristics of spent fuels from nuclear power plants, such as type and burn-up, were reviewed. A disposal canister concept for shorter length and relatively lower burn-up spent fuels than the reference spent fuels was developed. Based on this canister concept, thermal analyses were carried out and a deep geological disposal concept was proposed. Measures of disposal efficiency such as unit disposal area and disposal density were compared between this disposal system and the reference disposal system. Also, economic feasibility, such as the volume reduction of copper, cast iron, and bentonite, was analyzed and the results of these analyses showed that the disposal system proposed in this paper has an efficiency of at least 20%. These results could be used for establishing spent fuel management policy and designing practical disposal systems for spent fuels.

A Structural Analysis of the SNF(Spent Nuclear Fuel) Disposal Canister with the SNF Basket Section Shape Change for the Pressurized Water Reactor(PWR) (고준위폐기물다발의 단면형상 변화에 따른 가압경수로(PWR)용 고준위폐기물 처분용기의 구조해석)

  • Kwon, Young-Joo
    • Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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    • v.25 no.1
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    • pp.37-49
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    • 2012
  • A structural model of the SNF(spent nuclear fuel) disposal canister for the PWR(pressurized water reactor) for about 10,000 years long term deposition at a 500m deep granitic bedrock repository has been developed through various structural safety evaluations. The SNF disposal baskets of this canister model have the array type whose four square cross section baskets stand parallel to each other and symmetrically with respect to the center of the canister section. However, whether this developed structural model of the SNF disposal canister is optimal is not determinable yet. Especially, there is still a problem in weight-reduction of the canister. The cross section shape of the SNF basket should be changed to solve this problem. There are two ways in changing the cross section shape of the SNF basket; the one is to rotate the cross section itself and the other is to change the cross section shape as other shape different from the square cross section. The previous study shows that the canister with $30{\sim}35^{\circ}$ rotated basket array is structurally more stable than the canister with un-rotated parallel basket array. However, whether this canister with rotated basket array is optimal is not either determinable as yet, because it is not revealed that the canister with other cross section different from the square cross section is structurally more stable than other canisters. Therefore, the structural analysis of the SNF disposal canister with other cross section shape which is also symmetric with respect to the canister center planes is very necessary. The structural analysis of the canister with various cross section shape basket array in which each basket is arrayed symmetrically with respect to the center planes is carried out in this paper. The structural analysis result shows that the SNF disposal canister with circular cross section shape baskets located symmetrically with respect to the center of the canister section is structurally more stable than the previously developed SNF disposal canister with the parallel basket array.

Measuring thermal conductivity and water suction for variably saturated bentonite

  • Yoon, Seok;Kim, Geon-Young
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.53 no.3
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    • pp.1041-1048
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    • 2021
  • An engineered barrier system (EBS) for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste (HLW) is composed of a disposal canister with spent fuel, a buffer material, a gap-filling material, and a backfill material. As the buffer is located in the empty space between the disposal canisters and the surrounding rock mass, it prevents the inflow of groundwater and retards the spill of radionuclides from the disposal canister. Due to the fact that the buffer gradually becomes saturated over a long time period, it is especially important to investigate its thermal-hydro-mechanical-chemical (THMC) properties considering variations of saturated condition. Therefore, this paper suggests a new method of measuring thermal conductivity and water suction for single compacted bentonite at various levels of saturation. This paper also highlights a convenient method of saturating compacted bentonite. The proposed method was verified with a previous method by comparing thermal conductivity and water suction with respect to water content. The relative error between the thermal conductivity and water suction values obtained through the proposed method and the previous method was determined as within 5% for compacted bentonite with a given water content.