Strategies for Certifying A Burnup Credit Cask

A new generation of high capacity spent fuel transport casks is being developed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as part of the Federal Waste Management System (FWMS). Burnup credit, which recognizes the reduced reactivity of spent fuel is being used for these casks. Both cask designs being developedfor DOE by Babcock & Wilcox and General Atomics me burnup credit. The cask designs must be certified by the Nuclear Regulatory commission (NRC) if they are to be used in the FWMS. Certification of these casks by the NRC would not require any change in transport regulations, and would be consistent with past practices. To support certification, DOE has identified the technical issues related to burnup credit, and embarked on a development program to resolve them. Following a background discussion ofcriticality safety for spent fuel transport, an approach to design and use of a burnup credit cask is presented. It is concluded that an adequate technical basis is being developedfor spent fuel casks to demonstrate compliance with the NRC criticality safety requirements.