Out-of-Pile Studies of Fission-Product Release From Overheated Reactor Fuels at Ornl, 1955--1965.

Abstract

Thie report was prepared as an account of Government sponsored work. Neither the United States. nor the Commission. nor any person acting on behalf of the Commlssion:A. M&ee any warranty or representation, expressed o r implied. with respect to the accuracy, completeness. or usefulness of the information contained in tble report, or that the use of any information. apparatus. method. or process dlsclosed in this report may not Infrlnge privately owned rlghts; or B. Assumes any liabilities with r e~p e c t to the use of. or for damages resulting from the use of any informatlon, apparatus. method. or process disclosed in W e report.As used In the above. "person acting on behalf of the Commiaelon" includes m y employee or.:contractor of the Commission. o r employee of such contractor. to the extent that such employee or contractor of the Commission, or employee of such contractor prepares.dlesemlnates, or provides acce88 to, any information p u r '~u~o t to hls employment or contract with the Commission. or his employment with such contractor. h e a t e d r e a c t o r f u e l m a t e r i a l s s t a r t e d a t ORNL i n 1955 as a two-man e f f o r t t o s u p p l y d a t a needed t o d e t e r m i n e t h e h a z a r d of n u c l e a r r e a c t o r a c c i d e n t s . These s t u d i e s , which have c o n t i n u e d and expanded s i n c e t h a t t i m e , have g e n e r a t e d a g r e a t d e a l of d a t a on a v a r i e t y of r e a c t o r f u e l s . Much of t h i s i n f o r m a t i o n w a s r e p o r t e d i n documents t h a t r e c e i v e d l i m i t e d d i s t r i b u t i o n . T h i s r e p o r t c o n t a i n s a d i sc u s s i o n of f a c t o r s a f f e c t i n g f i s s i o n p r o d u c t release, a d e s c r i p t i o n of t e c h n i q u e s d e v e l o p e d i n t h e s e s t u d i e s, a c o m p i l a t i o n of d a t a o b t a i n e d i n t h e 11-year p e r i o d c o v e r e d by t h e r e p o r t , some i l l u s t r a t i o n s of t h e u s e of t h e d a t a , and some recommendations f o r f u r t h e r r e s e a r c h .

Dispersion Fuels

“…In order to predict the consequences of such an accident, one must know the amount of fission products released from the fuel and the rate of release. Parker et al (1967), Graber etal. (1966), Posey (1983), Shibata et al (1984), Woodley (1986Woodley ( ,1987, and Saito et al (1989) have performed measurements of fission product release from aluminum-based dispersion fuels.…”

Fuels for research and test reactors, status review: July 1982

“…This value decreases to about Information on the release of fission products from plate-type fuels is relatively scarce. Many of the early data are for uranium metal or U0 2 fuels; [113,114] however, some data are available for uranium-aluminum alloy fuels and UAlx dispersion fuels. Data on U 3 0 8 dispersion-type fuels are limited.…”

Analysis of the risk of transporting spent nuclear fuel by train

“…• Data on Environmental Characteristics of Material Shipped (14) • Data on Route, Population, and Weather Characteristics (15) • Data on Potential Health Effects of Material Shipped (16) The environmental behavior characteristics and health effects from exposure to the released material is a function of the material itself and must be developed individually for each study. Data for Step 15 are available from many compilations including u.S. Census data (13) and summaries of regional weather data compiled by the U.S.…”

“…Deformation plots for the side impact case are shown in Figures C.14 through C. 16. In order to characterize gross deformation as a function of impact velocity, changes in model diameter (both horizontal and vertical) were chosen as parameters.…”

“…The probability of a probe failing the cask lid (event X83) was estimated to be about 10-12 to [10][11][12][13][14][15][16] . If the failures are totally dependent, the combined failure rate would be 10-12 .…”