• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.73-80
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• 2014

A concrete cask is an option for spent nuclear fuel interim storage. A concrete cask usually consists of a metallic canister which confines the spent nuclear fuel assemblies and a concrete overpack. When the overpack undergoes a missile impact, which might be caused by a tornado or an aircraft crash, it should sustain an acceptable level of structural integrity so that its radiation shielding capability and the retrievability of the canister are maintained. A missile impact against a concrete overpack produces two damage modes, local damage and global damage. In conventional approaches [1], those two damage modes are decoupled and evaluated separately. The local damage of concrete is usually evaluated by empirical formulas, while the global damage is evaluated by finite element analysis. However, this decoupled approach may lead to a very conservative estimation of both damages. In this research, finite element analysis with material failure models and element erosion is applied to the evaluation of local and global damage of concrete overpacks under high speed missile impacts. Two types of concrete overpacks with different configurations are considered. The numerical simulation results are compared with test results, and it is shown that the finite element analysis predicts both local and global damage qualitatively well, but the quantitative accuracy of the results are highly dependent on the fine-tuning of material and failure parameters.

• Journal of Radiation Industry
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.43-52
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• 2024

Currently, there are no interim storage facilities and permanent disposal facilities in Korea, so all spent nuclear fuels are temporarily stored. However, the temporary storage facility is approaching saturation, and as a measure to this, the 2nd Basic Plan for the Management of High-Level Radioactive Waste presented an operation plan for dry interim storage facilities and dry temporary storage facilities on the NPP on-site. The dry storage can be operated in various ways, and to select the optimal dry storage method, the reduction of exposure for workers must be considered. Accordingly, it is necessary to develop a worker exposure scenario according to the dry storage method and evaluate and compare the radiological impact for each method. The purpose of this study is to develop an exposure scenario for workers transporting spent nuclear fuel by dry storage method. To this end, first, the operation procedure of the foreign commercial spent nuclear fuel dry storage system was analyzed based on the Final Safety Analysis Report (FSAR). 1) the concrete overpack-based system, 2) the metal overpack-based system, and 3) the vertical storage module-based system were selected for analysis. Factors were assumed that could affect the type of work (working distance, working hours, number of workers, etc.) during transportation work. Finally, the work type of the processes involved in transporting spent nuclear fuel by dry storage method was set, and an exposure scenario was developed accordingly. The concrete overpack method, the metal overpack method, and the vertical storage module method were classified into a total of 31, 9, and 23 processes, respectively. The work distance, work time, and number of workers for each process were set. The product of working hours and number of workers (Man-hour) was set high in the order of concrete overpack method, vertical storage module method, and metal overpack method, and short-range work (10 cm) was most often applied to the concrete overpack method. The results of this study are expected to be used as basic data for performing radiological comparisons of transport workers by dry storage method of spent nuclear fuel.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.601-608
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• 2003

Thermal analyses have been carried out for a spent fuel dry storage cask under normal and off-normal conditions. Environmental temperature is assumed to be $15^{\circ}C$ under the normal condition. The off-normal condition has an environmental temperature of $38^{\circ}C$. An additional off-normal condition is considered as a partial blockage of the air inlet ducts. Two of the four air inlet ducts are assumed to be completely blocked. The maximum temperatures of the fuel rod and concrete overpack were lower than the allowable values under the normal condition. Temperature distributions for the off-normal conditions were slightly higher than the normal conditions.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.13-22
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• 2004

This study presents the thermal analyses of a spent fuel dry storage cask under normal and off-normal conditions. The environmental temperature is assumed to be 15 $^{\circ}C$ under the normal condition. The off-normal condition has an environmental temperature of 38 $^{\circ}C$. An additional off-normal condition is considered as a partial blockage of the air inlet ducts. Two of the four air inlet ducts are assumed to be completely blocked. The significant thermal design feature of the storage cask is the air flow path used to remove the decay heat from the spent fuel. Natural circulation of the air inside the cask allows the concrete and fuel cladding temperatures to be maintained below the allowable values. The finite volume computational fluid dynamics code FLUENT was used for the thermal analysis. The maximum temperatures of the fuel rod and concrete overpack were lower than the allowable values under the normal and off-normal conditions.