Criticality Safety Evaluation of the Fuel Cycle Facility Electrorefiner

Conference · Sun Sep 19 04:00:00 EDT 1993

OSTI ID:10182114

Lell, R. M. ^[1]; Mariani, R. D. ^[1]; Fujita, E. K. ^[1]; Benedict, R. W. ^[1]; Turski, R. B. ^[1]

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1. Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

The integral Fast Reactor (IFR) being developed by Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) combines the advantages of metal-fueled, liquid-metal cooled reactors and a closed-loop fuel cycle. Some of the primary advantages are passive safety for the reactor and resistance to diversion for the heavy metal in the fuel cycle. in addition, the IFR pyroprocess recycles all the long-lived actinide activation products for casting into new fuel pins so that they may be burned in the reactor. A key component in the Fuel Cycle Facility (FCF) recycling process is the electrorefiner (ER) in which the actinides are separated from the fission products. In the process, the metal fuel is electrochemically dissolved into a high-temperature molten salt, and electrorefined uranium or uranium/plutonium products are deposited at cathodes. This report addresses the new and innovative aspects of the criticality analysis ensuing from processing metallic fuel, rather than metal oxide fuel, and from processing the spent fuel in batch operations. in particular, the criticality analysis employed a mechanistic approach as opposed to a probabilistic one. A probabilistic approach was unsuitable because of a lack of operational experience with some of the processes, rendering the estimation of accident event risk factors difficult. The criticality analysis also incorporated the uncertainties in heavy metal content attending the process items by defining normal operations envelopes (NOES) for key process parameters. The goal was to show that reasonable process uncertainties would be demonstrably safe toward criticality for continuous batch operations provided the key process parameters stayed within their NOES. Consequently, the NOEs became the point of departure for accident events in the criticality analysis.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP)
• DOE Contract Number: W-31109-ENG-38
• OSTI ID: 10182114
• Report Number(s): ANL/FC/CP--79115; CONF-930907--10; ON: DE93040233
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

050800
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
210500
210802
ACCIDENTS
ANODES
CATHODES
CRITICALITY
Criticality Analysis
ELECTROREFINING
Electrorefiner (ER)
FAILURES
FUEL CYCLE
IFR REACTOR
Normal Operations Envelopes (NOES)
Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP)
POWER REACTORS
BREEDING
PROCESS CONTROL
SAFETY
SEPARATION EQUIPMENT
SPENT FUELS
SPENT FUELS REPROCESSING
integral Fast Reactor (IFR)