Pinhole Breaches in Spent Fuel Containers: Improvements to Conservative Models of Aerosol Release and Plugging

摘要

Modern spent fuel storage systems are composed of two major components. The first component is a canister that consists of a "basket" in which spent fuel assemblies are placed and an affixed cylindrical shell that is roughly 1 cm thick. The second component is a robust "overpack" that protects the canister. For licensing purposes, it is necessary to determine how these systems perform under off-normal conditions. Specifically, it is important to address the ability of the system to contain the radioactivity placed within it and the ability of the system to maintain the integrity of the fuel it houses. In order to help address these issues, we have developed a model for characterizing a canister that has developed a pinhole breach. [1,2] In this work, we present improvements that we have made to this model.