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Impact Investigation of Reactor Fuel Operating Parameters on Reactivity for Use in Burnup Credit Applications

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Impact Investigation of Reactor Fuel Operating Parameters on Reactivity for Use in Burnup Credit Applications UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones 11-2010 Impact investigation of reactor fuel operating parameters on reactivity for use in burnup credit applications Tanya N. Sloma University of Nevada, Las Vegas Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/thesesdissertations Part of the Environmental Sciences Commons, Mechanical Engineering Commons, and the Nuclear Engineering Commons Repository Citation Sloma, Tanya N., "Impact investigation of reactor fuel operating parameters on reactivity for use in burnup credit applications" (2010). UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones. 780. http://dx.doi.org/10.34917/2044538 This Thesis is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by Digital Scholarship@UNLV with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Thesis in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/ or on the work itself. This Thesis has been accepted for inclusion in UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones by an authorized administrator of Digital Scholarship@UNLV. For more information, please contact [email protected]. IMPACT INVESTIGATION OF REACTOR FUEL OPERATING PARAMETERS ON REACTIVITY FOR USE IN BURNUP CREDIT APPLICATIONS by Tanya Noel Sloma Bachelor of Science University of Nevada, Las Vegas 2006 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Science in Materials and Nuclear Engineering Department of Mechanical Engineering Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering Graduate College University of Nevada, Las Vegas December 2010 Copyright by Tanya Noel Sloma 2011 All Rights Reserved THE GRADUATE COLLEGE We recommend the thesis prepared under our supervision by Tanya Noel Sloma entitled Impact Investigation of Reactor Fuel Operating Parameters on Reactivity for Use in Burnup Credit Applications be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Materials and Nuclear Engineering Master of Science in Materials and Nuclear Engineering William Culbreth, Committee Chair Charlotta Sanders, Committee Member Mohamed Trabia, Committee Member Kaushik Ghosh, Graduate Faculty Representative Ronald Smith, Ph. D., Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate College December 2010 ii ABSTRACT Impact Investigation of Reactor Fuel Operating Parameters on Reactivity for Use in Burnup Credit Applications by Tanya Noel Sloma Dr. William Culbreth, Examination Committee Chair Dr. Charlotta Sanders, Examination Committee Co-Chair Professors of Mechanical Engineering University of Nevada, Las Vegas When representing the behavior of commercial spent nuclear fuel (SNF), credit is sought for the reduced reactivity associated with the net depletion of fissile isotopes and the creation of neutron-absorbing isotopes, a process that begins when a commercial nuclear reactor is first operated at power. Burnup credit accounts for the reduced reactivity potential of a fuel assembly and varies with the fuel burnup, cooling time, and the initial enrichment of fissile material in the fuel. With regard to long-term SNF disposal and transportation, tremendous benefits, such as increased capacity, flexibility of design and system operations, and reduced overall costs, provide an incentive to seek burnup credit for criticality safety evaluations. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued Interim Staff Guidance 8, Revision 2 in 2002, endorsing burnup credit of actinide composition changes only; credit due to actinides encompasses approximately 30% of exiting pressurized water reactor SNF inventory and could potentially be increased to 90% if fission product credit were accepted. However, one significant issue for utilizing full burnup credit, compensating for actinide and fission product composition changes, is establishing a set of depletion iii parameters that produce an adequately conservative representation of the fuel's isotopic inventory. Depletion parameters can have a significant effect on the isotopic inventory of the fuel, and thus the residual reactivity. This research seeks to quantify the reactivity impact on a system from dominant depletion parameters (i.e., fuel temperature, moderator density, burnable poison rod, burnable poison rod history, and soluble boron concentration). Bounding depletion parameters were developed by statistical evaluation of a database containing reactor operating histories. The database was generated from summary reports of commercial reactor criticality data. Through depletion calculations, utilizing the SCALE 6 code package, several light water reactor assembly designs and in-core locations are analyzed in establishing a combination of depletion parameters that conservatively represent the fuel's isotopic inventory as an initiative to take credit for fuel burnup in criticality safety evaluations for transportation and storage of SNF. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To the individuals that guided me, believed in me, and lit the fire, thank you for the long enduring support. Without you all, my family, friends, and other-half, I may have lost all motivation to prove that I can and did complete a Master thesis in Nuclear Engineering. Thank you, Dr. Charlotta Sanders, for guiding me to and through a Master degree, and still being there after many attempts to quit. Mark Sanders, thank you for being so much more than the guy in the back of the classroom, and providing the much needed comedy and late night SCALE runs. My deepest gratitude to both of you for helping me with more than just schoolwork and always being an email away. To my sister and the birth of my adoring niece, for without your several pregnant months of boredom spent helping type nearly a hundred thousand operational histories into Excel, this thesis research may have never been finished. I am forever grateful. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................v LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ vii LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................1 Nuclear Fuel Cycle .....................................................................................................3 Regulatory Guidance ................................................................................................14 Research Objectives ..................................................................................................16 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE RESEARCH REVIEW ....................................................19 CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY ....................................................................................25 Operating History......................................................................................................25 Statistical Analyses and Selection of Depletion Parameters .....................................30 Calculation and Model Specifications ......................................................................39 SCALE 6 Code .........................................................................................................51 CHAPTER 4 DATA ANALYSIS ....................................................................................59 Results .......................................................................................................................59 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ....................................73 Future Examinations .................................................................................................75 APENDIX 1 NOMENCLATURE FOR UNCOMMON TERMS ..................................77 APENDIX 2 SCALE MODEL INPUT SAMPLE ..........................................................78 Input 1: Depletion Calculation ..................................................................................78 Input 2: Critcality Calculation ..................................................................................81 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..............................................................................................................85 VITA ..................................................................................................................................88 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1 SNF Assemblies Viable for Conceptual Burnup Credit Cask ........................ 24 Table 2 Represented Commercial Nuclear Power Plants ............................................ 26 Table 3 PWR Operation History Depletion Parameter Statistics ................................ 31 Table 4 BWR Operation History Depletion Parameter Statistics ................................ 31 Table 5 Moderator Temperature Parameter ................................................................. 32 Table 6 PWR Cycle Averaged Soluble Boron Concentration Statistics ..................... 35 Table 7 BPR Summary for BWR Fuels (Henderson 1999) ........................................
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