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This report satisfies Milestone 4295 for Work Package A0403K11. The long-term behavior of TRISO nuclear reactor fuel in a geologic repository is examined in terms of its durability and thermal impact. The TRISO fuel concept, under development at General Atomics[1] involves embedding fissile uranium and/or actinides in a carbonaceous material as shown in Fig. 1. In the concept, fuel kernels containing fissile material are surrounded with a porous carbon buffer and coated with inner and outer pyrocarbon layers separated with a SiC layer. The fuel particles are then imbedded in a graphite compact and the compacts placed in fuel channels drilled in fuel assembly blocks as shown in the lower right-hand corner of the figure. Dimensions are listed in Table 1. Available data on the degradation of the carbonaceous materials in an aqueous environment is reviewed. A model accounting for waste package failure and the resulting degradation of the waste forms is used to evaluate the potential for the long-term sequestration of radionuclides from spent TRISO fuel in the Yucca Mountain Repository. Finally, thermal analyses of decay heat assess the potential benefits in repository space utilization from recycling actinides from PWR spent fuel as very high burnup TRISO fuel. Experimentalmore » data on the aqueous dissolution of carbonaceous materials is relatively sparse and in some cases is based on measurements carried out at temperatures much higher than would be expected in the repository. In addition, the degree to which the aqueous solutions used in the measurements are representative of Yucca Mountain groundwater is uncertain. However, the available dissolution rate data are generally two or more orders of magnitude lower than the Yucca Mountain Project's dissolution model for borosilicate glass. Model calculations show that if the observed rates are applicable to the Yucca Mountain environment, directly disposed TRISO fuel has the potential to prevent significant release of radionuclides to the environment for several million years. A scheme was examined where actinide elements recovered from {approx}77 MT of spent PWR fuel were used to manufacture 1 MT of TRISO fuel for a high-burnup recycle in a Deep Burn Modular Helium Reactor (DB-MHR). PWR process waste and spent DB-MHR fuel would be disposed in the Yucca Mountain Repository. Thermal performance computations show that the space utilization benefit of this recycle scheme would potentially be in the range of 1.7 to 1.8 as compared to generating the same amount of nuclear energy only in PWRs with direct disposal of the spent fuel.« less |
