Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
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Coupled 3D thermal-hydraulic code development for performance assessment of spent nuclear fuel disposal system

  • Samuel Park (Department of Nuclear Engineering, Seoul National University) ;
  • Nakkyu Chae (Department of Nuclear Engineering, Seoul National University) ;
  • Pilhyeon Ju (Department of Nuclear Engineering, Seoul National University) ;
  • Seungjin Seo (Department of Nuclear Engineering, Seoul National University) ;
  • Richard I. Foster (Nuclear Research Institute for Future Technology and Policy, Seoul National University) ;
  • Sungyeol Choi (Department of Nuclear Engineering, Seoul National University)
  • Received : 2023.11.22
  • Accepted : 2024.04.27
  • Published : 2024.09.25
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Abstract

As a solution to the problem of spent nuclear fuels (SNFs), the disposal of SNF has gained attention from nations using nuclear energy because of hazards posed to the ecosystem. Among many proposed solutions, the most promising method is to dispose of SNF in a deep geological repository (DGR) which utilizes the multi-barrier concept developed by Finland and Sweden. Here, a new fully-coupled Thermal-Hydraulic (TH) code HADES (High-level rAdionuclide Disposal Evaluation Simulator) is developed using the MOOSE framework. This new code suggests basic numerical tools, such as a non-linear solver and finite element discretization, to assess the safety performance of disposal systems. The new TH code considered various TH behavior using Richards' flow approach, assuming gas pressure is constant. The HADES showed promising results when it was compared to various TH codes validated from DECOVAELX-THMC projects. When the single-canister model was utilized to estimate the TH behavior of the Korean Reference disposal System, although it showed significant saturation reduction due to the evaporation of water, the temperature was maintained under the thermal criteria limit, which is 100 ℃. In addition, the new code estimated temperature and degree of saturation of the multi-canisters model, considering two or three canisters, it showed a slightly lower temperature, 5 ℃, than the single-canister model. From these results, the following are concluded: (1) the new TH code contribute to an additional integrity by estimating TH behavior of KRS; (2) however, due to limitations in single-canister simulation, it is recommended to use multi-canisters simulation to estimate TH behavior accurately. Therefore, this model is anticipated not only to help licensing applications and estimation of various multi-physics phenomena and multi-canister at the disposal site.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No. 2021M2E1A1085194), and Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP) and the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy (MOTIE) of the Republic of Korea (No. 20224000000120).

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