Impacts of LEU+ and HBU Fuel on Decay Heat and Radiation Source Term

Technical Report · Fri Apr 01 04:00:00 EDT 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1971719· OSTI ID:1971719

Kucinski, Nicholas ^[1]; Stefanovic, Peter ^[1]; Clarity, Justin ^[1]; Wieselquist, William ^[1]

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1. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Using low-enriched uranium with ²³⁵U enrichment slightly greater than 5.0 wt % (LEU+) fuel is desirable for light water reactors (LWR) because it can enable longer cycles and/or smaller fresh fuel batches. This report analyzes the impact of LEU+ on back-end considerations, such as its impact on the spent fuel pool, and on the thermal and shielding performance of dry storage systems. For both pressurized water reactor (PWR) and boiling water reactor LEU+ fuel, this report concludes that additional cooling time or regionalized loading plans are required to maintain the same level of thermal and shielding performance of dry storage systems loaded with LEU fuel. For PWR fuel, this report concludes that the impact of LEU+ fuel on the time-to-boil of a spent fuel pool (SFP) is minimal and does not require considerable changes in SFP management.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1971719
• Report Number(s): ORNL/TM--2022/1841
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS