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Research activities at GRS on fuel rod behaviour during extended dry storage

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Published/Copyright: January 23, 2019
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Kerntechnik
From the journal Kerntechnik Volume 83 Issue 6

Abstract

As a common part of nuclear waste management strategies, used nuclear fuel is dry stored in casks. After a sufficient time of wet cooling in fuel pools, the fuel assemblies in Germany are dry stored in dual purpose casks mostly on-site until a deep geological repository will be available in the future. In the light of the extended and preliminary not foreseen timescales of up to 100 years of dry storage, open questions arise concerning the long term fuel rod behaviour. Most of these questions are linked to safety criteria e.g. the integrity and fuel encapsulation. Due to the variety of used nuclear fuels and cladding materials in Germany and the additional use of MOX fuels and very high burn-up values of 65 GWd/tHM averaged over a fuel assembly, some of the boundary conditions are unique and specific to the German situation. The GRS has a strong research program to investigate the long term behaviour of fuel assemblies under the German specific conditions of dry storage. Some aspects are presented in the following article.

Kurzfassung

Als gemeinsamer Bestandteil der Strategien zur Entsorgung nuklearer Abfälle wird der abgebrannte Kernbrennstoff trocken in Fässern gelagert. Nach einer ausreichenden Zeit der Nasskühlung in Lagerbecken werden die Brennelemente in Deutschland in Zweizweckbehältern meist vor Ort trocken gelagert, bis in Zukunft ein geologisches Tiefenlager zur Verfügung steht. Angesichts der verlängerten und vorläufigen, nicht vorhersehbaren Fristen von bis zu 100 Jahren Trockenlagerung stellen sich offene Fragen zum langfristigen Brennelementverhalten. Die meisten dieser Fragen sind mit Sicherheitskriterien wie z.B. der Integrität und der Kraftstoffverkapselung verbunden. Aufgrund der Vielfalt der verwendeten Kernbrennstoffe und Hüllstoffe in Deutschland und des zusätzlichen Einsatzes von MOX-Brennstoffen sowie sehr hoher Brennwerte von durchschnittlich 65 GWd/tHM über eine Brenneinheit sind einige der Randbedingungen einzigartig und spezifisch für die deutsche Situation. Die GRS verfügt über ein starkes Forschungsprogramm, um das Langzeitverhalten von Brennelementen unter den deutschen spezifischen Bedingungen der Trockenlagerung zu untersuchen. Einige Aspekte werden im folgenden Artikel vorgestellt.

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Received: 2018-09-11
Published Online: 2019-01-23
Published in Print: 2018-12-17

© 2018, Carl Hanser Verlag, München

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Contents/Inhalt
  2. Contents
  3. Editorial
  4. Safety of extended dry storage of spent nuclear fuel – GRS workshop 2018
  5. Technical Contributions/Fachbeiträge
  6. CIEMAT response to challenges on fuel safety research during dry storage
  7. Research activities at GRS on fuel rod behaviour during extended dry storage
  8. Open questions on the road to reliable predictions of cladding integrity
  9. Considerations on spent fuel behavior for transport after extended storage
  10. Investigations of the hydrogen diffusion and distribution in Zirconium by means of Neutron Imaging
  11. Effect of Zirconium Hydrides on the mechanical behavior of cladding
  12. Response of irradiated nuclear fuel rods to quasi-static and dynamic loads
  13. Investigations on potential methods for the long-term monitoring of the state of fuel elements in dry storage casks
https://doi.org/10.3139/124.110950

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Contents/Inhalt
  2. Contents
  3. Editorial
  4. Safety of extended dry storage of spent nuclear fuel – GRS workshop 2018
  5. Technical Contributions/Fachbeiträge
  6. CIEMAT response to challenges on fuel safety research during dry storage
  7. Research activities at GRS on fuel rod behaviour during extended dry storage
  8. Open questions on the road to reliable predictions of cladding integrity
  9. Considerations on spent fuel behavior for transport after extended storage
  10. Investigations of the hydrogen diffusion and distribution in Zirconium by means of Neutron Imaging
  11. Effect of Zirconium Hydrides on the mechanical behavior of cladding
  12. Response of irradiated nuclear fuel rods to quasi-static and dynamic loads
  13. Investigations on potential methods for the long-term monitoring of the state of fuel elements in dry storage casks
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