• Journal of Radiation Industry
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.255-266
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• 2024

The uranium nuclear fuel used in nuclear power generation needs to be replaced with new fuel after a certain period. In South Korea, the spent nuclear fuel generated during this process is temporarily stored within the nuclear power plant site, and there are ongoing issues with the saturation of storage capacity. To address these problems, the South Korea government has established a plan to manage high-level radioactive waste, including provisions for securing interim storage facilities. An interim storage facility is designed to safely store spent nuclear fuel for certain period before its permanent disposal. This study analyzed leading international cases of interim storage facilities that are technically feasible and can reduce the operating period of temporary storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel within nuclear power plant sites. It also presented the technical concepts required for the operation of interim storage facilities for spent fuel from PWR(Pressurized Water Reactor), reflecting the situation in South Korea.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.582-589
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• 2010

As a part of the back-end fuel cycle, transportation of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from nuclear power plants (NPPs) to a fuel storage facility is very important in establishing a nuclear fuel cycle. In Korea, the accumulated amount of SNF in the NPP pools is troublesome since the temporary storage facilities at these NPP pools are expected to be full of SNF within ten years. Therefore, Korea cannot help but plan for the construction of an interim storage facility to solve this problem in the near future. Especially, a decision on several factors, such as where the interim storage facility should be located, how many casks a transport ship can carry at a time and how many casks are initially required, affect the configuration of the transportation system. In order to analyze the various possible candidate scenarios, we assumed four cases for the interim storage facility location, three cases for the load capacity that a transport ship can carry and two cases for the total amount of casks used for transportation. First, this study considered the currently accumulated amount of SNF in Korea, and the amount of SNF generated from NPPs until all NPPs are shut down. Then, how much SNF per year must be transported from the NPPs to an interim storage facility was calculated during an assumed transportation period. Second, 24 candidate transportation scenarios were constructed by a combination of the decision factors. To construct viable yearly transportation schedules for the selected 24 scenarios, we created a spreadsheet program named TranScenario, which was developed by using MS EXCEL. TranScenario can help schedulers input shipping routes and allocate transportation casks. Also, TranScenario provides information on the cask distribution in the NPPs and in the interim storage facility automatically, by displaying it in real time according to the shipping routes, cask types and cask numbers that the user generates. Once a yearly transportation schedule is established, TranScenario provides some statistical information, such as the voyage time, the availability of the interim storage facility, the number of transported casks sent from the NPPs, and the number of transported casks received at the interim storage facility. By using this information, users can verify and validate a yearly transportation schedule. In this way, the 24 candidate scenarios could be constructed easily. Finally, these 24 scenarios were compared in terms of their operation cost.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2009

It is expected that a substantial amount of spent fuels will be transported from the four nuclear power plant (NPP) sites in Korea to a hypothetical centralized interim storage facility or a final repository in the near future. The cost for the transportation is proportional to the amount of spent fuels. In this paper, a cost estimation program is developed based on the conceptual design of a transportation system and a logistics analysis. Using the developed computer program, named as CASK, the minimum capacity of a centralized interim storage facility (CISF) and the transportation cost for PWR spent fuels are calculated. The PWR spent fuels are transported from 4 NPP sites to a final repository (FR) via the CISF. Since NPP sites and the CISF are located along the coast, a sea-transportation is considered and a road-transportation is considered between the CISF and the FR. The result shows that the minimum capacity of the interim storage facility is 15,000 MTU.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.7
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• pp.2604-2612
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• 2023

Spent nuclear fuel and long-lived radioactive waste must be carefully handled before disposing them off to a geological repository. After the pre-storage period in water pools, spent nuclear fuel is stored in casks, which are widely used for interim storage. Interim storage in casks is very important part in the whole cycle of nuclear energy generation. This paper presents the results of the numerical study that was performed to evaluate the thermal behavior of a metal-concrete CONSTOR RBMK-1500 cask loaded with spent nuclear fuel and placed in an open type interim storage facility which is under fire conditions (steady-state, fire, post-fire). The modelling was performed using the ANSYS Fluent code. Also, a local sensitivity analysis of thermal parameters on temperature variation was performed. The analysis demonstrated that the maximum increase in the fuel load temperatures is about 10 ℃ and 8 ℃ for 30 min 800 ℃ and 60 min 600 ℃ fires respectively. Therefore, during the fire and the post-fire periods, the fuel load temperatures did not exceed the 300 ℃ limiting temperature set for an RBMK SNF cladding for long-term storage. This ensures that fire accident does not cause overheating of fuel rods in a cask.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.189-193
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• 2013

Annual dose on the containment building wall of the interim storage facility at normal condition was calculated to estimate the dose rate transition of the facility of PWR spent nuclear fuel. In this study, source term was generated by ORIGEN-ARP with 4.5 wt% initial enrichment, 45,000 MWd/MTU burnup and 10 years cooling time. Modeling of the storage facility and the containment building and radiation shielding evaluations were conducted by MCNP code depending on the distance between the wall and the facility in the building. In the case of the centralized storage system, the distance required for the annual dose rate limit from 10CFR72 was estimated to be 50 m.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.411-425
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• 2017

Using a probabilistic safety assessment, a risk evaluation framework for an aircraft crash into an interim spent fuel storage facility is presented. Damage evaluation of a detailed generic cask model in a simplified building structure under an aircraft impact is discussed through a numerical structural analysis and an analytical fragility assessment. Sequences of the impact scenario are shown in a developed event tree, with uncertainties considered in the impact analysis and failure probabilities calculated. To evaluate the influence of parameters relevant to design safety, risks are estimated for three specification levels of cask and storage facility structures. The proposed assessment procedure includes the determination of the loading parameters, reference impact scenario, structural response analyses of facility walls, cask containment, and fuel assemblies, and a radiological consequence analysis with dose-risk estimation. The risk results for the proposed scenario in this study are expected to be small relative to those of design basis accidents for best-estimated conservative values. The importance of this framework is seen in its flexibility to evaluate the capability of the facility to withstand an aircraft impact and in its ability to anticipate potential realistic risks; the framework also provides insight into epistemic uncertainty in the available data and into the sensitivity of the design parameters for future research.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.147-154
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• 2008

It is expected that the temporary storage facilities at the nuclear power plants will be full of the spent fuels within 10 years. Provided that a centralized interim storage facility is constructed along the coast of the Korean peninsula to solve this problem, a substantial amount of spent fuels should be transported by sea or by land every year. In this paper we developed a computer program for the analysis of transportation logistics of the spent fuels from 4 different nuclear power plant sites to the hypothetical centralized interim storage facility and the final repository. Mass balance equations were used to analyze the logistics between the nuclear power plants and the interim storage facility. To this end a computer program, CASK, was developed by using the VISUAL BASIC language. The annual transportation rates of spent fuels from the four nuclear power plant sites were determined by using the CASK program. The parameter study with the program illustrated the easiness of logistics analysis. The program could be used for the cost analysis of the spent fuel transportation as well.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.61-74
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• 2021

A paradigm shift in the government's energy policy was reflected in its declaration of early closure of old nuclear plants as well as cancellation of plans for the construction of new plants. To this end, unit 1 of Kori Nuclear Power Plant was permanently shut down and is set for decommission. Based on these changes, the off-site transport of spent fuels from nuclear power plants has become a critical issue. The purpose of this study is to develop an optimized method for transportation of spent fuels from Kori Nuclear Power Plant's units 1, 2, 3, and 4 to an assumed interim storage facility by simulating the scenarios using the Flexsim software, which is widely used in logistics and manufacturing applications. The results of the simulation suggest that the optimized transport methods may contribute to the development of delivery schedule of spent fuels in the near future. Furthermore, these methods can be applied to decommissioning plan of nuclear power plants.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.440-451
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• 1996

With emphasis on safety, this study addresses for better design condition for the cooling system in a wet-type interim spent fuel storage facility, using a probabilistic safety assessment method. To incorporate the design renovation into the design phase, a simple approach is proposed. By taking the cooling system of a reference design, a fault tree analysis was performed to identify the weak point of the considered system, and then basic factors for design renovation were defined. A total of 21 design alternatives were selected through the combination of the basic factors. Finally, the optimum design alternative for the cooling system is derived by means of the cost and effect analysis based on the estimated cost, system reliability and assumed probabilistic safety criteria. With the assumption that the failure frequency of at-reactor spent fuel cooling system compiles with probabilistic safety criteria for the interim spent fuel cooling system, it was shown that the optimum alternative should have l00% cooling loop redundancy with one pump per cooling loop and a cleanup system installed separately from the main loop. Furthermore, it also should be classified into safety system. The result of this study can be used as a useful basis to identify factors of safety concern and to establish design requirements in the future. The method also can be applied for other nuclear facilities.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2017.05a
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• pp.61-62
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• 2017