UNIVERSITY OF BUCHAREST
FACULTY OF PHYSICS

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Conference: Bucharest University Faculty of Physics 2004 Meeting


Section: Nuclear and Elementary Particles Physics


Title:
Monte Carlo Methods Application to CANDU Spent Fuel Comparative Analysis


Authors:
Cristina Alice Margeanu*), Tatiana Angelescu**), Petre Ilie*)


Affiliation:
*) Institute for Nuclear Research Pitesti, Romania, Po Box 78 Pitesti

**) Faculty of Physics, University of Bucharest, Po Box MG-12 Bucharest


E-mail
malice@scn.ro


Keywords:
spent fuel transport, spent fuel intermediate dry storage, natural UO2 fuel, SEU fuel, photon dose rates, shipping cask, storage basket


Abstract:
Romania has a single NPP with 5 reactors PHWR, CANDU6 type, 705 MW(e) each: Unit1 operational starting from December 1996, Unit2 under construction, the rest under conservation. The nuclear energy world wide development is accompanied by huge quantities of spent nuclear fuel accumulation. Taking into account for the possible impact on the human and environment, in all activities associated to nuclear fuel cycle - transportation, storage, reprocessing, disposal - the spent fuel characteristics must be well known. The paper aim is to apply Monte Carlo methods to CANDU spent fuel analysis, starting from the discharge moment followed by spent fuel transport after a defined cooling period and intermediate dry storage. As radiation source 3 CANDU fuels have been considered: standard 37 rods fuel bundle with natural UO2 and SEU fuels, and 43 rods fuel bundle with SEU fuel. After a criticality calculation using KENO-VI code, the criticality coefficient and the actinides and fission products concentrations are obtained. By using ORIGEN-S code, the photon source profiles are calculated and the spent fuel characteristics estimation is done. For the shielding calculations MORSE-SGC code has been used. Regarding to the spent fuel transport, the photon dose rates to the shipping cask wall and in air, at different distances from the cask, are estimated. The shielding calculation for the spent fuel intermediate dry storage is done and the photon dose rates to the storage basket wall (active element of the Cernavoda NPP intermediate dry storage) are obtained. A comparison between the 3 types of CANDU fuels has been also done.