Detailed temperature distributions of the spent fuel are required to evaluate the long-term integrity of the dry storage system. In this study, a subchannel analysis method was established to obtain the detailed temperatures of a spent fuel using the COBRA-SFS code. The SAHTT (Single Assembly Heat Transfer Test) model was selected as the subchannel analysis. It was developed at the PNL to investigate heat transfer characteristics of spent PWR fuel under dry storage conditions. The SAHTT has a 15×15 rod array with simulated rods 0.42 in. (10.7 mm) in diameter. Control rod thimbles were modeled with unheated rods. The COBRA-SFS input consists a detailed subchannel model with 256 subchannels, 225 rods, and 8 slab nodes. The heat generation rate was axially uniform with total power of 1.0 kW. Subchannel analyses were performed for the vertical orientation under three different backfills of air, helium, and vacuum. For the vacuum backfill, the peak temperature was the highest and temperature gradients the sharpest only due to the radiation heat transfer effect. For the helium backfill, peak temperature was lowest and the axial profiles flattest due to the higher conductivity and lower density of helium. Subchannel analyses were also performed to evaluate the effect of thermal parameters such as surface emissivity, convective heat transfer coefficients, and flow resistance coefficients on the PCT (Peak Cladding Temperature). The PCT was affected by the emissivity of the fuel rod and the basket, and in particular, the basket emissivity had a greater effect. The PCT was affected by the Nusselt number, but the range of the Nusselt number is around 3.66. Therefore, the effect of the Nusselt number on the PCT will not be significant. As a result of the analysis according to the flow resistance coefficients, the PCT was affected by the wall friction factor, but the loss coefficients from the space grid had little effect. Subchannel technique obtained from this work can be used to predict the detailed temperature distributions of spent fuel assembly.

• Ju-Chan Lee(Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, 111, Daedeok-daero 989beon-gil, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon)
• Doyun Kim(Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, 111, Daedeok-daero 989beon-gil, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon)
• Kyung-Sik Bang(Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, 111, Daedeok-daero 989beon-gil, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon)
• Seunghwan Yu(Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, 111, Daedeok-daero 989beon-gil, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon)