Experiment Isotopic Data Compiled by the OECD/NEA Expert Group on Assay Data for Spent Nuclear Fuel

Conference · Sun Nov 15 00:00:00 EST 2009

OSTI ID:980701

Gauld, Ian C. ^[1]; Rugama, Yolanda ^[2]

---

1. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
2. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Paris (France). Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA)

An essential component of computational modeling and simulation is the availability of well-qualified experimental benchmark data against which calculation systems can be validated and the bias and uncertainty associated with the codes and data can be evaluated. The validation process is extremely important for safety and licensing to demonstrate that adequate margins for uncertainty have been included in the calculations. For safety evaluations involving spent nuclear fuel, the isotopic compositions and resulting activities calculated using depletion and decay codes must be validated against experimental determinations of the spent fuel content. In this process the isotopic concentrations predicted by the codes should be compared with corresponding measurements of spent fuel made by destructive analysis as a fundamental part of any code performance evaluation. In recent years there has been growing international interest in acquiring high-quality assay data that can be used to validate code calculations, particularly for modern fuel designs and high burnup fuels and for a wider range of nuclides important to nuclear criticality safety, radiological safety assessments, and decay heat. Assay data are required to validate a broad range of reactor and fuel-cycle applications, including reactor core simulation, postulated severe accident analysis, spent fuel handling, spent fuel transportation and interim storage, reprocessing, nuclear safeguards, and final fuel repository evaluations. In some cases researchers working on depletion code development have noted a general lack of available assay measurements that can be used to benchmark and validate their code calculations for spent fuel compositions. This perception is due in part to the fact that data have been reported in diverse publications over many years, many experimental reports are difficult to access, and there has not been a concerted and funded effort to compile and consolidate available measurements that can be easily accessed by code developers and analysts for validation. In response to the increased interest in fuel isotopic measurements and needs for consolidation and documentation of available data, an Expert Group on Assay Data for Spent Nuclear Fuel (EGADSNF) was formed in 2007 as a working group of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)/Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) Working Party on Nuclear Criticality Safety (WPNCS). Although the group was formed by the Expert Group on Burnup Credit to coordinate isotopic assay data activities and facilitate collaboration between countries developing or implementing burnup credit in their nuclear criticality safety methodologies, the group recognized the need and value of assay data for a broad range of spent fuel applications, and the EGADSNF includes members representing not only the WPNCS, but also members from the standing technical Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations and the Integration Group for the Safety Case of the Radioactive Waste Management Committee. Member countries currently active in the EGADSNF include Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Japan, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The experimental database of spent fuel measurements maintained by the OECD/NEA is web-accessible. SFCOMPO (database of Spent Fuel Compositions) contains measured isotopic data, mostly for light water reactor (LWR) fuels, for about 250 fuel samples. This paper summarizes the status of SFCOMPO and current activities to expand and improve the database.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Paris (France). Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 980701
• Resource Relation: Conference: 2009 ANS Winter Meeting , Washington, DC (United States), 15-19 Nov 2009
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE WASTES, AND NON- RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING
BELGIUM
BENCHMARKS
BURNUP
COOPERATION
COORDINATES
CRITICALITY
CZECH REPUBLIC
DECAY
DEVELOPERS
DOCUMENTATION
ECONOMICS
ENERGY
EVALUATION
FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY
FRANCE
FUEL CYCLE
FUELS
ISOTOPES
JAPAN
NEA
NUCLEAR FUELS
PERFORMANCE
RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
REACTOR CORES
REACTORS
REPROCESSING
SAFEGUARDS
SAFETY
SIMULATION
SLOVAKIA
SPAIN
SPENT FUELS
SWEDEN
UNITED KINGDOM
VISIBLE RADIATION
WASTE STORAGE
SFCOMPO status
current activities
database improvement
Expert Group on Assay Data for Spent Nuclear Fuel (EGADSNF)
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)/Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA)
Working Party on Nuclear Criticality Safety (WPNCS)