Thermal and metallurgical considerations of a novel design for the nuclear waste container
The Departments of Civil and Mechanical Engineering at University of Nevada, Las Vegas are involved in the high level nuclear waste project. Designing containers for long term disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high level radioactive waste, is one of the project tasks. A multi-barrier robust waste containment scheme is being, actively researched, as preliminary work, has shown that, this scheme would better resist the degradation mechanisms set up by phenomena such as geological activity, water immersion, occurrence of mechanical loading, dry oxidizing conditions and wet reducing conditions. The physical configuration of the waste cannister, has an inner shell of copper base alloy, to resist a wet reducing environment, an outer shell of nickel base alloy, to resist dry and oxidizing conditions and a nonconducting oxide barrier to separate the two metallic barriers. Cement concrete is being considered for this role. With 10cm of concrete between the metal alloy shells and the maximum allowable thermal loads reaching 4740W, the possibility of reaching temperatures, that could be detrimental to concrete is real (i.e., 300C and above). The temperature of the inner shell, to a great degree is a function of the thickness of the oxidic concrete layer. Another possible option being studied is the use of alumina as a sandwich, between the two metal shells. With the 10cm alumina the maximum inner shell temperature will be 230C. To maintain the inner shell at a relatively lower temperature, only a single copper base container will be used at the time of emplacement. After a period of 50 years, the waste is either retrieved for processing or the system is upgraded to a permanent multi-barrier system.
- Research Organization:
- Nevada Univ., Las Vegas, NV (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FC08-90NV10872
- OSTI ID:
- 145539
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9107280-1; ON: DE95000598; TRN: 94:020315
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Nuclear waste packaging focus `91, No City Given, NY (United States), Jul 1991; Other Information: PBD: [1994]
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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