R&D activities of spent nuclear fuel integrity evaluation during handling and transportation for long-term storage

In Korea, starting Hanbit unit, the on-site storage capability for Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) is expected to be saturated, and Kori unit 1 will be shutdown permanently in 2017. Therefore the management of SNF is a rising issue in Korean nuclear industry. Interim storage is suggested as one of the most promising options to solve this hard situation among many management scenarios. Handling and transportation of SNF are inevitable processes for its long-term storage even under the other ways such as its final disposal, recycling and others. According to the related regulation guidelines of many countries, SNF integrity is the major concern during the transportation and storage since it is not easily tractable comparing to the facility systems that are successfully commercialized worldwide. To prepare the upcoming events, the relevant R&D has been embarked on the SNF integrity during shipping and handling area and performed now. Those activities are (1) analysis of the characteristics of various SNF and database (DB) construction, (2) selection technology among various kinds of SNF for evaluation (3) characteristic test of simulated SNF and (4) development of computer simulation model for SNF evaluation, etc. In this paper each item is briefly outlined and future plan is also touched. Especially, the representative spent nuclear fuel (R-SNF) selection techniques are mainly focused.