Radionuclide inventories for short run-time space nuclear reactor systems

Conference · Sat Jan 09 23:00:00 EST 1993 · AIP Conference Proceedings (American Institute of Physics); (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.43228· OSTI ID:6541676

Coats, R L ^[1]

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1. Sandia National Laboratories, P.O. Box 5800, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185 (United States)

Space Nuclear Reactor Systems, especially those used for propulsion, often have expected operation run times much shorter than those for land-based nuclear power plants. This produces substantially different radionuclide inventories to be considered in the safety analyses of space nuclear systems. This presentation describes an analysis utilizing ORIGEN2 and DKPOWER to provide comparisons among representative land-based and space systems. These comparisons enable early, conceptual considerations of safety issues and features in the preliminary design phases of operational systems, test facilities, and operations by identifying differences between the requirements for space systems and the established practice for land-based power systems. Early indications are that separation distance is much more effective as a safety measure for space nuclear systems than for power reactors because greater decay of the radionuclide activity occurs during the time to transport the inventory a given distance. In addition, the inventories of long-lived actinides are very low for space reactor systems.

• DOE Contract Number: AC04-76DP00789
• OSTI ID: 6541676
• Report Number(s): CONF-930103--
• Journal Information: AIP Conference Proceedings (American Institute of Physics); (United States), Journal Name: AIP Conference Proceedings (American Institute of Physics); (United States) Vol. 271:1; ISSN 0094-243X; ISSN APCPCS
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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