TITLE:
Safe Controlled Storage of SVBR-100 Spent Nuclear Fuel in the Extended-Range Future
AUTHORS:
Georgy Toshinsky, Sergey Grigoriev, Alexander Dedul, Oleg Komlev, Ivan Tormyshev
KEYWORDS:
Spent Nuclear Fuel, Controlled Storage, Lead-Bismuth Coolant, Safety Barriers, Radioactive Waste
JOURNAL NAME:
World Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology,
Vol.9 No.3,
July
5,
2019
ABSTRACT: Experience of operating reactor
facilities (RF) with lead-bismuth coolant (LBC) has revealed that it is
possible to perform safe refueling in short terms if the whole core is replaced
and a kit of the special refueling equipment is used. However, comparing with
RFs of nuclear submarines (NS), in which at the moment of performance of
refueling the residual heat release is small, at RF SVBR-100 in a month after
the reactor has been shut down, at the moment of
performance of refueling the residual heat release is about 500 kW. Therefore,
it is required to place the spent removable unit (SRU) with spent fuel
subassemblies (SFSA) into the temporal storage tank (TST) filled with liquid
LBC, in which the conditions for coolant natural circulation (NC) and heat removal
via the tank vessel to the water cooling system are provided. After the residual
heat release has been lowered to the level allowing transportation of the TST
with SRU in the transporting-package container (TPC), it is proposed to
consider a variant of TPCs transportation to the special site. On that site after the SRU
has been reloaded into the long storage tank (LST) filled with quickly
solidifying liquid lead, the TPCs can be stored during the necessary period.
Thus, the controlled storage of LSTs is realized during several decades untill the time when SNF reprocessing and NFC closing are becoming economically
expedient. On that storage, the four safety barriers are formed on the way of the release of radioactive products into the environment, namely: fuel matrix, fuel
element cladding, solid lead and steel casing of the LST.