Spent Nuclear Fuel Package Consolidation using Metallic Void Fillers

Journal Article · Fri Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 2016 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society

OSTI ID:23042592

Park, Yongsoo; McKrell, Thomas J.; Driscoll, Michael J. ^[1]

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1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: 77 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139 (United States)

This study introduces the idea of a consolidated spent nuclear fuel (SNF) package, formed by casting a metal into a SNF canister to fill any accessible void spaces. It is well known that castings experience shrinkage during cooling resulting in air gaps between the filler and its boundaries. For a consolidated SNF package, the air gap formed between the metallic filler and package components would have a negative impact on the thermal effusivity benefit offered by the filler. Here we present one solution to this challenge based on thermodynamic/solidification and metallic bonding principles. The key idea here is to pre-coat the package components with a low melting point metal, and to oxidize the coating instead of the components during the pre-heating step of the casting process. This allows for wetting of the boundary with the filler metal without the use of a flux that wouldn't survive the preheat temperature and could also contaminate the boundary with corrosive compounds. Potential benefits of successfully adopting this idea are twofold. First, improved heat diffusion inside the package due to the absence of the gap, which is significant for conceptual SNF with higher decay heat and high peak to average ratio. Second, improved proliferation resistance by making the fissile material recovery process more complex. (authors)

• OSTI ID: 23042592
• Journal Information: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Vol. 115; ISSN 0003-018X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
AFTER-HEAT
CONTAINERS
COOLING
FISSILE MATERIALS
HEAT
METALS
SOLIDIFICATION
SPENT FUELS
THERMODYNAMICS