Development of a Modeling Approach to Estimate Radiation From a Spent Fuel Rod Quiver

Elter, Zs.; Mishra, Vaibhav; Grape, Sophie; Branger, Erik; Jansson, Peter; Balkeståhl, L. Pöder; Hedberg, Marcus

doi:10.1051/epjconf/202124716006

Cited by 1 publication

(7 citation statements)

References 3 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The serpentTools [28] package was used to read in the detector tallies in the output files from the particle transport calculations carried out in Serpent2 to create the plots shown in figure 8. The results from the first part of this study were found to be in line with those from [7] where the total gamma and neutron flux from the quiver were seen to be of roughly the same order of magnitude as the PWR quiver. The flux values for both gammas and neutrons were roughly of the same order, taking into account the number of fuel rods in the BWR quiver when compared to the PWR quiver from [7] which holds more than twice as many rods.…”

Section: Jinst 15 P12023supporting

confidence: 83%

“…The results from the first part of this study were found to be in line with those from [7] where the total gamma and neutron flux from the quiver were seen to be of roughly the same order of magnitude as the PWR quiver. The flux values for both gammas and neutrons were roughly of the same order, taking into account the number of fuel rods in the BWR quiver when compared to the PWR quiver from [7] which holds more than twice as many rods. Moreover, it was observed that the drop in gamma and neutron flux across the quiver lid was also comparable, where the gamma flux was reduced by a factor of 10 6 and the neutron flux dropped to zero in both PWR and BWR quivers.…”

Section: Jinst 15 P12023supporting

confidence: 83%

“…This section gives details on the results of different analyses carried out in the present study. Section 4.1 describes the results from estimation of the gamma and neutron flux from the fuel rods above the quiver lid in order to draw a comparison with past studies [7]. Section 4.2 will delve into the details of the Monte Carlo transport calculations performed to estimate flux values at the Fork instrument in different detection instrument-fuel/quiver configurations.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The first objective of the current study was to map the gamma and neutron flux from the BWR quiver above and around the lid with Serpent2 and compare gamma and neutron radiation intensities with those obtained by [7]. Thereafter, in order to assess the feasibility of a safeguards verification from the sides, a Fork instrument was modeled (as described in section 3.3) according to specifications.…”

Section: Computational Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A study by [7] has looked into pressurized water reactor (PWR) quivers wherein a model of the PWR quiver was built and the gamma and neutron radiation fields around its lid were mapped to obtain an estimate of flux rates using an SFAT detector. In the present work we build a model of a BWR quiver in the Monte Carlo particle transport code Serpent2 [8] with realistic fuel content based on fuel data obtained from Forsmark NPP in Sweden, in order to estimate gamma and neutron fluxes above and around it.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Estimating gamma and neutron radiation fluxes around BWR quivers for nuclear safeguards verification purposes

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Non-destructive assay (NDA) methods are at the core of nuclear safeguards verification of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). In Sweden, the spent nuclear fuel from all the reactor sites is moved to the Swedish central interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel (for which the Swedish acronym is Clab). A new facility, Clink, is planned at the site where the SNF will undergo a safeguards verification prior to encapsulation for long-term storage. The fuel to be encapsulated includes both regular fuel assemblies as well as “non-regular” fuel assemblies including fuel objects called quivers, which are specially designed containers to house damaged or failed and leaking spent fuel rods in a way to isolate the rods from the environment and prevent contamination. The quiver concept was recently introduced in the Swedish nuclear market by Westinghouse Electric Sweden AB and it has led to some unique challenges from a safeguards verification standpoint which stem from their construction. Their overall stainless steel build, while providing robustness to the structure, also greatly diminishes the possibility of detecting gamma or neutron radiation using traditional safeguards measurement devices. The current investigation looks into the practicalities of safeguards verification of boiling water reactor (BWR) quiver objects in the spent fuel pool from above, and also assesses the possibility of their verification from the side using the widely used Fork detector. The Fork instrument has been routinely employed by both operators and inspectors around the world to verify spent fuel for routine safeguards inspections. In the present work, we model the BWR quiver and the Fork instrument in the Monte Carlo particle transport code, Serpent2 to estimate the radiation flux around the quiver objects. We have shown that the gamma and neutron radiation from the BWR quiver were heavily attenuated by the stainless steel lid and could not be relied on to make a safeguards verification from above. Furthermore, it was established that while gamma radiation from the quiver remains measurable on the sides of the quiver by the Fork instrument, the neutron counts were low compared to a typical BWR fuel assembly of similar fuel content albeit within the limits of detectability of the Fork.

show abstract

Section: Jinst 15 P12023supporting

confidence: 83%

Section: Jinst 15 P12023supporting

confidence: 83%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Computational Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations