Project Details
There have been over 240,000 spent fuel assemblies discharged from U.S. commercial reactors since 1960s. The fuel parameters, e.g. burnup, enrichment, and lattice size, have evolved dramatically over the years. The spent fuel source terms including decay heat, activity, neutron/photon emission, and plutonium content vary significantly due to the variations in fuel parameters.
Survey the GC-859 spent fuel database to identify the general trend of fuel parameters. Divide the database into 3 groups based on discharge year; identify the median fuel parameters of each group to form representative cases; generate reference solutions using SCALE for spent fuel source terms based on the representative parameters.
Understanding the general characteristics of spent fuel helps decision-makers to form overall strategies for U.S. spent fuel disposal. Quantification of the spent fuel source terms can provide important input parameters for the design and safety evaluation of spent fuel storage and transportation systems.
