Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology

In this paper, sets of engineering analyses were conducted to renew the overall dimensions and configurations of a disposal container proposed as a prototype in the previous study. Such efforts and calculation results can provide new design variables such as the inner basket array type and thickness of the outer shell and the lid & bottom of a spent nuclear fuel disposal container. These efforts include radiation shielding and nuclear criticality analyses to check to see whether the dimensions of the container proposed from the mechanical structural analyses can provide a nuclear safety or not. According to the results of the structural analysis of a PWR disposal container by varying the diameter of the container insert, the Maximum Von Mises stress from the 102 - container meets the safety factor of 2.0 for both extreme and normal load conditions. This container also satisfies the nuclear criticality and radiation safety limits. This decrease in the diameter results in a weight loss of a container by 20 tons.

Keywords

disposal container,Von Mises stress,spent PWR fuel,safety factor,deep geological repository