Making the Case: Demonstrating the Integrity of Spent Nuclear Fuel During Long-term Storage and Subsequent Transportation

The U.S Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Nuclear Energy (NE), Spent Fuel and Waste Storage and Transportation (SFWST) program is conducing R&D to gather data to assess the viability of long-term storage of commercial spent nuclear fuel (SNF), as well as transportation after storage. The goal of this research is to determine if SNF will maintain its integrity during long-term storage and transportation operations. The SFWST program works collaboratively with organizations directly involved in the dry storage of commercial spent fuel. These organizations include the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the DOE national laboratories, the Nuclear Energy Institute, the Electric Power Research Institute, utilities, cask and fuel vendors, industry contractors, international organizations, standards committees, and universities. This broad technical community ensures that the most important technical issues are being addressed and that the identified R&D priorities are defensible and directly related to the safe management of SNF. Within this collaborative framework, work has been conducted to address material and mechanical properties of SNF and storage system components, environmental conditions that effect these systems, and load conditions that are expected to impact the storage and transportation components and the SNF directly. This approach allows for a composite assessment of spent fuel integrity given all the factors that affect the dry storage system and fuel. This paper will detail the SFWST program and provide results of the work done to-date. Based on this work, the paper will provide an assessment of the integrity of SNF during long-term storage and transportation. It will also discuss current work and planned near-term future R&D work.This paper describes objective technical results and analysis. Any subjective views or opinions that might be expressed in the paper do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Energy or the United States Government. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525.SAND2019-0590 A