scholarly journals Fatigue Behavior of Spent Nuclear Fuel Rods in Simulated Transportation Environment

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hong Wang ◽  
Jy-an John Wang ◽  
Hao Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Spent Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Fatigue Behavior ◽  
The United States ◽  
Pressurized Water ◽  
Fuel Rods ◽  
Cyclic Bending ◽  
Oak Ridge ◽  
High Burnup ◽  
Reversed Cyclic

Nuclear fuel rod is composed of cladding tube and a specified number of fuel pellets contained. In the United States, spent nuclear fuel (SNF) is expected to be transported to at least one storage facility before permanent disposal. The fatigue behavior of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) rods under reversed cyclic bending must be understood in order to evaluate their vibration integrity in a transportation environment. This is especially important for high-burnup SNFs (>45 GWd/MTU). This report presents the experimental results related to Zircaloy (Zry)-4-based surrogate rods and high-burnup SNFs, based on recent work performed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The surrogate rod was made of Zry-4 cladding and alumina pellets, and high-burnup fuel rods were discharged from H.B. Robinson pressurized water reactor. The reversed cyclic bending testing was conducted at 5 Hz under loading control. The effect of pre-hydriding and burnup or irradiation on the flexural rigidity and fatigue life of cladding-pellet system were discussed. The fatigue data obtained are extremely useful to the future certification of SNF storage and transportation cask.

Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Integrity During Long-Term Dry Storage

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leroy Stewart ◽  
Mikal A. McKinnon
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Spent Nuclear Fuel ◽  
The United States ◽  
Department Of Energy ◽  
United States Department ◽  
Spent Fuel ◽  
Fuel Rods ◽  
Dry Storage ◽  
Environmental Laboratory ◽  
Cooperative Project

Abstract The United States Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management conducted spent nuclear fuel integrity and cask performance tests from 1984–1996 at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL). Between 1994 and 1998, DOE also initiated a Spent Fuel Behavior Project that involved enhanced surveillance, monitoring, and gas-sampling activities for intact fuel in a GNS CASTOR V/21 cask and for consolidated fuel in a Sierra Nuclear VSC-17 cask. The results of these series of tests are reported in this paper. Presently, DOE is involved in a cooperative project to perform destructive evaluations of fuel rods that have been stored in the CASTOR V/21 cask. The results of those evaluations are presented elsewhere in these proceedings in a paper entitled “Examination of Spent PWR Fuel Rods after 15 years in Dry Storage”.

Aqueous leaching of high burnup UO2 fuel under hydrogen conditions

MRS Advances ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (19) ◽  
pp. 1013-1018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Puranen ◽  
Olivia Roth ◽  
Lena Z. Evins ◽  
Kastriot Spahiu
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Hydrogen Pressure ◽  
Spent Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Pressurized Water Reactor ◽  
Pressurized Water ◽  
Fuel Layer ◽  
Initial Release ◽  
Radionuclide Inventory ◽  
High Burnup ◽  
Granitic Groundwater

ABSTRACTLeaching results on fragments of high burnup (65 MWd/kgU) UO2 fuel from a commercial pressurized water reactor are presented. The experiment was performed in simplified granitic groundwater under a hydrogen pressure of up to 5 MPa, representing conditions in a water intrusion scenario for a Swedish KBS-3 design spent nuclear fuel repository. The freshly crushed fragments were pre-washed for 6 days to remove pre-oxidized matrix and part of the instant release fraction of the radionuclide inventory, and then transferred to an autoclave for leaching under hydrogen conditions. Following an initial release of U attributed to dissolution of a pre-oxidized fuel layer caused by the aerated handling mainly during the transfer from pre-washing to autoclave, the U concentration decreased with time to levels of 2-5x10-9 M, which corresponds, approximately, to the solubility of amorphous UO2. The release of radionuclides such as Cs and Sr gradually declined indicating a transition to inhibition of the fuel matrix dissolution.

The MacArthur Maze Fire and Roadway Collapse: A “Worst Case Scenario” for Spent Nuclear Fuel Transportation?

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher S. Bajwa ◽  
Earl P. Easton ◽  
Harold Adkins ◽  
Judith Cuta ◽  
Nicholas Klymyshyn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Spent Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Steel Structure ◽  
Nuclear Regulatory Commission ◽  
The United States ◽  
Severe Accident ◽  
Case Scenario ◽  
Worst Case ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Regulatory Commission

In 2007, a severe transportation accident occurred near Oakland, California, at the interchange known as the “MacArthur Maze.” The accident involved a double tanker truck of gasoline overturning and bursting into flames. The subsequent fire reduced the strength of the supporting steel structure of an overhead interstate roadway causing the collapse of portions of that overpass onto the lower roadway in less than 20 minutes. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has analyzed what might have happened had a spent nuclear fuel transportation package been involved in this accident, to determine if there are any potential regulatory implications of this accident to the safe transport of spent nuclear fuel in the United States. This paper provides a summary of this effort, presents preliminary results and conclusions, and discusses future work related to the NRC’s analysis of the consequences of this type of severe accident.

scholarly journals The Need for Integrating the Back End of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle in the United States of America

MRS Advances ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (19) ◽  
pp. 991-1003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evaristo J. Bonano ◽  
Elena A. Kalinina ◽  
Peter N. Swift
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nuclear Fuel ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
Spent Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Fuel Cycle ◽  
Nuclear Fuel Cycle ◽  
The United States ◽  
Spent Fuel ◽  
Dry Storage ◽  
The Us

ABSTRACTCurrent practice for commercial spent nuclear fuel management in the United States of America (US) includes storage of spent fuel in both pools and dry storage cask systems at nuclear power plants. Most storage pools are filled to their operational capacity, and management of the approximately 2,200 metric tons of spent fuel newly discharged each year requires transferring older and cooler fuel from pools into dry storage. In the absence of a repository that can accept spent fuel for permanent disposal, projections indicate that the US will have approximately 134,000 metric tons of spent fuel in dry storage by mid-century when the last plants in the current reactor fleet are decommissioned. Current designs for storage systems rely on large dual-purpose (storage and transportation) canisters that are not optimized for disposal. Various options exist in the US for improving integration of management practices across the entire back end of the nuclear fuel cycle.

Identification of Non-Linear Vibration Parameters of a Nuclear Fuel Rod

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Amabili ◽  
Prabakaran Balasubramanian ◽  
Giovanni Ferrari ◽  
Stanislas Le Guisquet ◽  
Kostas Karazis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Fuel ◽  
Harmonic Balance Method ◽  
Resonance Phenomenon ◽  
Pressurized Water ◽  
Fuel Rods ◽  
Fuel Rod ◽  
Fuel Pellets ◽  
Safety Margins ◽  
Fuel Assemblies ◽  
Non Linear

In Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR), fuel assemblies are composed of fuel rods, long slender tubes filled with uranium pellets, bundled together using spacer grids. These structures are subjected to fluid-structure interactions, due to the flowing coolant surrounding the fuel assemblies inside the core, coupled with large-amplitude vibrations in case of external seismic excitation. Therefore, understanding the non-linear response of the structure and, particularly, its dissipation, is of paramount importance for the choice of safety margins. To model the nonlinear dynamic response of fuel rods, the identification of nonlinear stiffness and damping parameters is required. The case of a single fuel rod with clamped-clamped boundary conditions was investigated by applying harmonic excitation at various force levels. Different configurations were implemented testing the fuel rod in air and in still water; the effect of metal pellets simulating nuclear fuel pellets inside the rods was also recorded. Non-linear parameters were extracted from some of the experimental response curves by means of a numerical tool based on the harmonic balance method. The axisymmetric geometry of fuel rods resulted in the presence of a one-to-one internal resonance phenomenon, which has to be taken into account modifying accordingly the numerical identification tool. The internal motion of fuel pellets is a cause of friction and impacts, complicating further the linear and non-linear dynamic behavior of the system. An increase of the equivalent viscous-based modal damping with excitation amplitude is often shown during geometrically non-linear vibrations, thus confirming previous experimental findings in the literature.

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