PWR Axial Burnup Profile Analysis

Technical Report · Mon Sep 29 04:00:00 EDT 2003

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/862144· OSTI ID:862144

Acaglione, J. M. ^[1]

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1. Yucca Mountain Project, Las Vegas, NV (United States)

The purpose of this activity is to develop a representative ''limiting'' axial burnup profile for pressurized water reactors (PWRs), which would encompass the isotopic axial variations caused by different assembly irradiation histories, and produce conservative isotopics with respect to criticality. The effect that the low burnup regions near the ends of spent fuel have on system reactivity is termed the ''end-effect''. This calculation will quantify the end-effects associated with Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) fuel assemblies emplaced in a hypothetical 21 PWR waste package. The scope of this calculation covers an initial enrichment range of 3.0 through 5.0 wt% U-235 and a burnup range of 10 through 50 GWd/MTU. This activity supports the validation of the process for ensuring conservative generation of spent fuel isotopics with respect to criticality safety applications, and the use of burnup credit for commercial spent nuclear fuel. The intended use of these results will be in the development of PWR waste package loading curves, and applications involving burnup credit. Limitations of this evaluation are that the limiting profiles are only confirmed for use with the B&W 15 x 15 fuel assembly design. However, this assembly design is considered bounding of all other typical commercial PWR fuel assembly designs. This calculation is subject to the Quality Assurance Requirements and Description (QARD) because this activity supports investigations of items or barriers on the Q-list (YMP 2001).

• Research Organization: Yucca Mountain Project, Las Vegas, NV (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP)
• OSTI ID: 862144
• Report Number(s): CAL-DSU-NU-000012-REV-00A; DOC.20031002.0002 DC#36098
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
BURNUP
Barriers
Burnup
CRITICALITY
Criticality
DESIGN
Design
END EFFECTS
EVALUATION
FUEL ASSEMBLIES
IRRADIATION
Isotopes
NUCLEAR FUELS
Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP)
Nuclear Waste
PWR
PWR TYPE REACTORS
Pressurized Water Reactor
QUALITY ASSURANCE
SAFETY
SPENT FUELS
VALIDATION
WASTES
Waste Disposal