Investigation of the required thickness of thorium spent fuel lead transport cask depending on different fuel burnups and cooling times

Authors

Abstract

Thorium fuels have attracted researcher’s attention due to the reduction of uranium deposits in the world, more abundances than uranium, and the ability to be breeding in thermal and fast reactors. This study aimed to investigate the radiation safety and the amount of necessary shielding for the transportation of spent thorium fuel in the Tehran Research Reactor. The ORIGEN and MCNPX computational codes were used to calculate the gamma spectra of the spent fuel and the fuel dose rates loaded within the lead cask. The results of the calculations showed that compared to uranium fuels used in the Tehran Research Reactor, more cooling times are needed before the thorium spent fuel transport by the lead cask. In addition, the thickness of the cask required for the transport of the spent thorium fuel is greater than uranium fuel.
 

Keywords

References

[1] X.X. Li. X.Z. Cai. D.Z. Jiang. Y.W. Ma. J.F. Huang. C.Y. Zou. C.G. Yu. J.L. Han. J.G. Chen Analysis of thorium and uranium based nuclear fuel options in Fluoride salt-cooled High temperature Reactor, Prog. in Nucl. Energ.78 (2015) 285-290. [2] J. Breza. P. Darˇílek. V. Necˇas. Study of thorium advanced fuel cycle utilization in light water reactor VVER-440, Annal. of Nucl. Energ. 37 (2010) 685–690. [3] P. Srinivasan. S. Ganesan. D. N. Sharma. H. S. Kushwaha. Estimation of dose rates on the PHWR irradiated thorium oxide bundles based on BARC updated nuclear data, BARC Golden Jubilee DAE-BRNS National Workshop on Nuclear Data for Advanced Nuclear Systems, Nuclear Databases and Applications, NWND-2006, 8-11 November (2006). [4] W. Rosenstock. O. Schumann. Thorium for Nuclear Energy – a Proliferation Risk? Fraunhofer-Institut für Naturwissenschaftlich-Technische Trendanalysen (INT), (2013). [5] Perspectives on the Use of Thorium in the Nuclear Fuel Cycle, NUCLEAR ENERGY AGENCY, (2015). [6] M. Bace. D. Grgic., Calculation of spent fuel storage cask parameters, Nuclear society of Slovenia, 2nd regional meeting, 11.Spe (1995). [7] K.A. Gruss. G. Hornseth. M.W. Hodges. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission acceptance.

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics