ANS/ENS Tutorial Session: Burnup Credit Issues in Spent Fuel Transportation: Overview and Objectives.

摘要

A number of opportunities exist to increase the efficiency of the next generation of spent fuel shipping casks. Improving cask efficiency will not only reduce life cycle transportation costs, but also is consistent with maintaining public and occupational radiological risks and, more importantly, total risks (radiological and nonradiological) within the guidelines of the ''as low as reasonably achievable'' (ALARA) philosophy. Increases in cask capacities will reduce both the total number of shipments required to transport a given amount of fuel and the number of handling operations at both shipping and receiving facilities. Additional capacity increases can be achieved by implementing various design strategies based on new concepts and/or the actual characteristics of the majority of the spent fuel to be shipped in the future. For example, it has been determined that additional capacity increases can be achieved by taking credit for burnup, the reduced reactivity that results when fuel has been used to produce power in a nuclear reactor. That is, as the fuel is used the atoms of fissile material decrease, and neutron absorbers (or ''poisons'') that tend to retard the fission process are produced. 7 refs., 1 fig. (ERA citation 14:004220)