Fuel Assembly and Irradiation Parametric Study for Extended-Enrichment and High-Burnup Light-Water Reactor Spent Nuclear Fuel in Dry Storage Casks and Transportation Packages (NUREG/CR-7306, ORNL/TM-2023/2938)

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Publication Information

Manuscript Completed: June 2023
Date Published: April 2024

Prepared by:
A. Alpan
N. Kucinski
A. Shaw
B. Hiscox
G. Radulescu

Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6170

Lucas Kyriazidis, NRC Project Manager

Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington DC 20555-0001

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Abstract

There is an increased interest in operating commercial light-water reactors (LWRs) in the United States with improved economics that would result from longer fuel cycle lengths, fewer and shorter refueling outages, and fewer fuel assemblies requiring storage at the back end of the fuel cycle. To support this, fuel discharge burnups, as well as initial 235U enrichments, must be higher than those used in current commercial LWRs. The typical upper limit considered for assembly average burnup in this report is 75 gigawatt-days (GWd) per metric ton of uranium (MTU), as opposed to the current typical upper bound of approximately 62 GWd/MTU. The upper limit considered for initial 235U enrichment is 8 weight percent (8 wt %), as opposed to the current regulatory limit of 5 wt %. The enrichment range from 5 to 8 wt % is referred to in this report as extended enrichment. To investigate the effect of high burnup and extended enrichment conditions on dose rates and burnup credit for dry storage casks and transportation packages, a fuel assembly and irradiation parametric study was performed. The conclusions from this study will assist U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff in reviewing applications for dry storage casks and transportation packages that contain high-burnup and extended enrichment fuel.