Thermal performance of a buried nuclear waste storage container storing a hybrid mix of PWR and BWR spent fuel rods; Revision 1

Abstract

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will design, model, and test nuclear waste packages for use at the Nevada Nuclear Waste Storage Repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. One such package would store tightly packed spent fuel rods from both pressurized and boiling water reactors. The storage container provides the primary containment of the nuclear waste and the spent fuel rod cladding provides secondary containment. A series of transient conduction and radiation heat transfer analyses was run to determine for the first 1000 yr of storage if the temperature of the tuff at the borehole wall ever falls below 97{degrees}C and whether the cladding of the stored spent fuel ever exceeds 350{degrees}C. Limiting the borehole to temperatures of 97{degrees}C or greater helps minimize corrosion by assuring that no condensed water collects on the container. The 350{degrees}C cladding limit minimizes the possibility of creep- related failure in the spent fuel rod cladding. For a series of packages stored in a 8 {times} 30 m borehole grid where each package contains 10-yr-old spent fuel rods generating 4.74 kW or more, the borehole wall stays above 97{degrees}C for the full 10000-yr analysis period. For the 4.74-kW load, the peak cladding temperature rises to just below the 350{degrees}C limit about 4 years after emplacement. If the packages are stored using the spacing specified in the Site Characterization Plan (15 ft {times} 126 ft), a maximum of 4.1 kW per container may be stored. If the 0.05-m-thick void between the container and the borehole wall is filled with loosely packed bentonite, the peak cladding temperature rises more than 40{degrees}C above the allowed cladding limit. In all cases the dominant heat transfer mode between container components is thermal radiation.