• Journal of Radiation Industry
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.309-320
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• 2023

A multi-purpose canister (MPC) was developed for the purpose of transportation, storage and disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and has the advantage of minimizing repackaging between management stages of SNF. Considering the typical rock characteristics in Korea, a disposal canister is expected to contain 4 assemblies of Pressurized water reactor (PWR) SNF. The capacity of the MPC should be similarly designed with the disposal canister. However, the MPC with four SNF assemblies is expected to be less efficient in transporting and storing compared to a large-capacity canister. Therefore, a preliminary concept was derived for an auxiliary equipment that can transport and store multiple MPCs in a large overpack. A previously derived concept from US was thoroughly reviewed, and the preliminary concept was revised considering domestic situations including crane capacity and others. In addition, the safety of the normal transportation and storage of the MPC placed in transportation and storage overpack was evaluated with the auxiliary equipment.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.39-50
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• 1997

Reference concepts for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel and the current status of underground rock laboratory were studied. An analysis to simulate the deep disposal of spent nuclear fuel in saturated rock mass was conducted. Main input parameters for numerical study were determined based on the KBS-3 concept. A series of results showed that the temperature distribution around a cavern reached the maximum value at about 10 years after the emplacement of spent fuel. The maximum temperature at the surface of canister was more than about 12$0^{\circ}C$ at about 4 years. This temperature was not much higher than the temperature criteria to meet the performance criteria of an artificial barrier in the KBS-3 concept. The maximum upward displacement due to the heat generation of spent fuel was about 0.9cm at about 10 years after the emplacement of spent fuel. It turned out that the vertical displacement became smaller with the decrease in heat generation of a canister. The quantity of groundwater inflow into a disposal tunnel increased by about 1.6 times at 20 years after the emplacement of spent fuel with the increase of pore pressure around a cavern.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.303-309
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• 2013

As an alternative of the spent fuel disposal in a geologic repository, a deep borehole disposal concept for disposal at the section of 3 - 5km deep in a borehole has been proposed in several countries. In this paper, the latest reports of Sandia National Laboratories on the borehole disposal researches are analyzed. For implementation of this disposal concept in Korea, a conceptual design of spent fuel disposal canister and a modified deep borehole concept are suggested along with a required disposal area.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.373-384
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• 2013

This paper is the second paper among two papers which constitute the paper about the rigid body dynamic analysis on the spent nuclear fuel disposal canister under accidental drop and impact to the ground. This paper performed the numerical study on the rigid body dynamic analysis. Through this study the impulsive force which is occurring in the spent nuclear fuel disposal canister under accidental drop and impact to the ground and required for the structural safety design of the canister is computed numerically. The main content of this numerical study is about the technical method how to compute the impulsive forces occurring in the canister under accidental drop and impact to the ground by using the commercial rigid body dynamic analysis computer codes. On the basis of this study the impulsive force which is occurring in the canister in the case of collision with the ground is numerically computed. This numerically computed impulsive force is increasing as the canister weight is increasing, and the canister falls plumb down and collides with the ground in three types according to the analysis results.

• 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.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.287-297
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• 2014

For several decades, many countries operating nuclear power plants have been studying the various disposal alternatives to dispose of the spent nuclear fuel or high-level radioactive waste safely. In this paper, as a direct disposal of spent nuclear fuels for deep geological disposal concept, the rod consolidation from spent fuel assembly for the disposal efficiency was considered and analyzed. To do this, a concept of spent fuel rod consolidation was described and the related concepts of disposal canister and disposal system were reviewed. With these concepts, several thermal analyses were carried out to determine whether the most important requirement of the temperature limit for a buffer material was satisfiedin designing an engineered barrier of a deep geological disposal system. Based on the results of thermal analyses, the deposition hole distance, disposal tunnel spacing and heat release area of a disposal canister were reviewed. And the unit disposal areas for each case were calculated and the disposal efficiencies were evaluated. This evaluation showed that the rod consolidation of spent nuclear fuel had no advantages in terms of disposal efficiency. In addition, the cooling time of spent nuclear fuels from nuclear power plant were reviewed. It showed that the disposal efficiency for the consolidated spent fuel rods could be improved in the case that cooling time was 70 years or more. But, the integrity of fuels and other conditions due to the longer term storage before disposal should be analyzed.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.470-473
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• 2005

Spent nuclear fuels are regarded as a high level radioactive waste and they will be disposed in a deep geological repository. To maintain the safety of the repository for hundreds of thousands of years, the spent fuels are encapsulated in a disposal canister and the canister containing spent fuels should have the structural integrity and the corrosion resistance below the several hundreds meters from the ground surface. In this study, the concept of the spent fuel encapsulation process and the process equipment fur deep geological disposal were established. To do this, the design requirements, such as the functions and the spent fuel accumulations, were reviewed. Also, the design principles and the bases were established. Based on the requirements and the bases, the encapsulation process and the equipment from spent fuel receiving process to transferring canister into the underground repository including hot cell processes was established. The established concept of the spent fuel encapsulation process and the process equipment will be improved continuously with the future studies. And this concept can be effectively used in implementing the reference repository system of our own case.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.209-218
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• 2012

A pyroprocess is currently being developed by KAERI to cope with a highly accumulated spent nuclear fuel in Korea. The pyroprocess produces a certain amount of high-level radioactive waste (HLW), which is solidified by a ceramic binder. The produced ceramic waste will be confined in a secure disposal canister and then placed in a deep geologic formation so as not to contaminate human environment. In this paper, the development of a disposal canister was overviewed by discussing mainly its design premises, constitution, manufacturing methods, corrosion resistance in a deep geologic environment, radiation shielding, and structural stability. The disposal canister should be safe from thermal, chemical, mechanical, and biological invasions for a very long time so as not to release any kind of radionuclides.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.229-236
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• 2009

There are two types of spent fuels generated from nuclear power plants, CANDU type and PWR type. PWR spent fuels which include a lot of reusable material can be considered to be recycled. CANDU spent fuels are considered to directly disposed in deep geological formation, since they have little reusable material. In this study, based on the Korean Reference spent fuel disposal System(KRS) which is to dispose both PWR and CANDU spent fuels, the more effective CANDU spent fuel disposal systems have been developed. To do this, the disposal canister has been modified to hold the storage basket which can load 60 spent fuel bundles. From these modified disposal canisters, the disposal systems to meet the thermal requirement for which the temperature of the buffer materials should not be over $100^{\circ}C$ have been proposed. These new disposals have made it possible to introduce the concept of long tenn storage and retrievabililty and that of the two-layered disposal canister emplacement in one disposal hole. These disposal concepts have been compared and analyzed with the KRS CANDU spent fuel disposal system in terms of disposal effectiveness. New CANDU spent fuel disposal concepts obtained in this study seem to improve thermal effectiveness, U-density, disposal area, excavation volume, and closure material volume up to 30 - 40 %.