For the decommissioning or continuous long-term power generation of nuclear power plants, it is necessary to transfer the spent nuclear fuel from the wet storage pool to the dry storage. Spent nuclear fuel should go through the drying process, which is the first step of dry storage. The most important part in the drying process is the removal of the residual water. The spent fuel might be stored in a dry storage system for a long time. The integrity of internal components and spent fuel cladding should be maintained during the storage period. If residual water is present, problems such as aging of metal materials, oxidation of cladding, and the hydride-reorientation could occur. The presence or absence of residual water after vacuum drying is evaluated by pressure. If there is residual water in the vacuum drying process, it evaporates easily at low pressure to form water vapor pressure and the internal pressure rises. In the recent EPRI High burn up demonstration test, the gas inside the canister that satisfied the dryness criteria was extracted and analyzed. It showed that the water content was higher than the expected value. We are conducting verification studies on the pressure evaluation method, which is an indirect evaluation method of vacuum drying. The vacuum drying test was performed on small specimens at Sandia National Laboratory, and quantitative residual water evaluation was also performed. The report did not mention a detailed method for the assessment of residual water. Based on the test results of SNL, direct residual water evaluation was performed using energy balance. If the dryness criteria were satisfied, the quantitative amount of residual water was also evaluated. As a result, almost the same result as the evaluation result of SNL was derived, and it was confirmed that most of the water was removed when the dryness criteria was satisfied.

According to the ‘Basic Plan for High-Level Radioactive Waste Management (draft)’, the total amount of CANDU spent nuclear fuel is expected to be approximately 660,000 bundles. To safely and efficiently transport this amount to interim storage facilities, it is essential to develop a large-capacity transport cask. Therefore, we have been developing a large-capacity PHWR spent nuclear fuel transport cask, called the KTC-360 transport cask. According to the transport-cask related regulations, the KTC-360 transport cask was classified as a Type B package, and such packages must be able to withstand a temperature of 800°C for a period of 30 min. It is desirable to conduct a test using a fullscale model of a shipping package when performing tests to evaluate its integrity. However, it is costly to perform a test using a full-scale model. Therefore, to evaluate the thermal integrity of the KTC-360 transport cask, the fire test was conducted using a slice model. For comparison purposes, the fire test was also carried out using a 1/4 scale model. In the fire test using a slice model and in the fire test using a 1/4 scale model, the maximum temperature of the cask body was lower than the permitted maximum temperature limit. Therefore, the thermal integrity of the KTC-360 transport cask could be considered to be maintained. The temperature results from the fire test using a slice model were higher than those of the fire test using a 1/4 scale model. Therefore, the effect of flame on a transport cask without combustible materials, such as the KTC-360 transport cask, seems to be affected by the reduction in the time rather than the size reduction.

Currently, the HI-STAR 63 transport cask, developed to transport CANDU spent nuclear fuel from the wet storage pool to the dry storage facility which is called the MACSTOR/KN-400, has a transport capacity of 120 bundles, which is unfavorable when considering transportation costs and other related aspects. According to the ‘Basic Plan for High-Level Radioactive Waste Management (draft)’, the total amount of CANDU spent nuclear fuel is expected to be approximately 660,000 bundles. To safely and efficiently transport this amount to interim storage facilities, it is essential to develop a large-capacity transport cask. Therefore, we have been developing a large-capacity PHWR spent nuclear fuel transport cask, called the KTC-360 transport cask. According to the transport-cask related regulations, the KTC-360 transport cask was classified as a Type B package, and such packages need to maintain integrity under the normal transport and accident conditions described in these regulations. To prove the thermal integrity of this cask under the normal transport and accident conditions, high-temperature and fire tests were performed using a one-third slice model of an actual KTC-360 cask. The results revealed that the surface temperature of the cask was 62°C, indicating that such casks need to be transported exclusively. The highest temperature of the CANDU spent nuclear fuel was predicted to be lower than the melting temperature of Zircaloy-4, which was the sheath material used. Therefore, if normal operating conditions are applied, the thermal integrity of a KTC- 360 cask could be maintained under normal transport conditions. The fire test revealed that the maximum temperatures of the structural materials, stainless steel, and carbon steel, were 446°C lower than the permitted maximum temperatures, proving the thermal integrity of the cask under fireaccident conditions.

Compartment fire tests were performed using kerosene and Jet A-1 as fire sources to evaluate the relationship between flame temperature and opening size. The tests were performed for a fire caused by the release of kerosene owing to vehicle impact, and for a fire caused by the release of Jet-A-1 owing to airplane collision. The compartment fire tests were performed using a 1/3-scale model of a metal storage cask when the flame temperature was deemed to be the highest. We found the combustion time of Jet-A-1 to be shorter than that of kerosene, and consequently, the flame temperature of Jet-A-1 was measured to be higher than that of kerosene. When the opening was installed on the compartment roof, even though the area of the opening was small, the ventilation factor was large, resulting in a high flame temperature and long combustion. Therefore, the position of the opening is a crucial factor that affects the flame temperature. When the metal storage cask was stored in the compartment, the flame temperature decreased proportionally with the energy that the metal storage cask received from the flame.