Integrated Management Platform for Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage and Transportation

Abstract

With the saturation of wet storage capacity in Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) and the growing demand for Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) reprocessing, the need for safe maintenance and transportation (M&T) of SNF is bound to increase significantly. The M&T process involves many factors, including the operation and refueling schedule of the NPP, the acceptance and waste reprocessing capabilities of the waste disposal plants, the availability of transportation containers, vehicles, and its crew, etc. Considering the number of factors to be coordinated, this complex process is prone to human error. This paper describes an integrated management platform for spent nuclear fuel storage and transportation capable of removing human error altogether in the M&T process of SNP. The platform covers processes including categorized temporary storage, in-plant transshipment, and out-of-plant long-distance transportation of SNF to waste disposal plants. This platform also features an embedded decision-making module for spent fuel transportation, which can automatically coordinate the generation speed of SNF at the NPPs and the reprocessing speed at the waste disposal facilities, respectively. The decision-making module also considers resource information, including transportation containers, vehicles, crew, etc., optimizes resource allocation, formulates transportation plans, and outputs the resource requirements and capability-building gaps for the next year, ensuring safe, orderly, and efficient transportation of spent fuel. The platform and its related technologies described in this paper can be extended to the storage and transportation of other radioactive waste or critical substances beyond spent nuclear fuel.