Criticality reference benchmark calculations for burnup credit using spent fuel isotopics

Technical Report · Mon Apr 01 00:00:00 EST 1991

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/5612113· OSTI ID:5612113

Bowman, S M

To date, criticality analyses performed in support of the certification of spent fuel casks in the United States do not take credit for the reactivity reduction that results from burnup. By taking credit for the fuel burnup, commonly referred to as burnup credit,'' the fuel loading capacity of these casks can be increased. One of the difficulties in implementing burnup credit in criticality analyses is that there have been no critical experiments performed with spent fuel which can be used for computer code validation. In lieu of that, a reference problem set of fresh fuel critical experiments which model various conditions typical of light water reactor (LWR) transportation and storage casks has been identified and used in the validation of SCALE-4. This report documents the use of this same problem set to perform spent fuel criticality benchmark calculations by replacing the actual fresh fuel isotopics from the experiments with six different sets of calculated spent fuel isotopics. The SCALE-4 modules SAS2H and CSAS4 were used to perform the analyses. These calculations do not model actual critical experiments. The calculated k-effectives are not supposed to equal unity and will vary depending on the initial enrichment and burnup of the calculated spent fuel isotopics. 12 refs., 11 tabs.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-84OR21400; AC04-76DP00789
• OSTI ID: 5612113
• Report Number(s): ORNL/M-1423; ON: DE91013206
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
BURNUP
S CODES
SPENT FUELS
WATER COOLED REACTORS
BENCHMARKS
CERTIFICATION
CRITICALITY
ISOTOPE SEPARATION
SPENT FUEL CASKS
URANIUM 234
URANIUM 235
URANIUM 236
URANIUM 238
ACTINIDE ISOTOPES
ACTINIDE NUCLEI
ALPHA DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
CASKS
COMPUTER CODES
CONTAINERS
ENERGY SOURCES
EVEN-EVEN NUCLEI
EVEN-ODD NUCLEI
FUELS
HEAVY ION DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
HEAVY NUCLEI
ISOMERIC TRANSITION ISOTOPES
ISOTOPES
MAGNESIUM 28 DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
MATERIALS
MINUTES LIVING RADIOISOTOPES
NEON 24 DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
NUCLEAR FUELS
NUCLEI
RADIOISOTOPES
REACTOR MATERIALS
REACTORS
SEPARATION PROCESSES
URANIUM ISOTOPES
YEARS LIVING RADIOISOTOPES
050900* - Nuclear Fuels- Transport
Handling
& Storage
050500 - Nuclear Fuels- Uranium Enrichment
220300 - Nuclear Reactor Technology- Fuel Elements