Spent nuclear fuel management is a high-priority issue in South Korea, and addressing it is crucial for the country’s long-term energy sustainability. The KORAD (Korea Radioactive Waste Agency) is leading a comprehensive, long-term project to develop a safe and effective deep geological repository for spent nuclear fuel disposal. Within this framework, we have three primary objectives in this work. First, we conducted statistical analysis to assess the inventory of spent nuclear fuel in South Korea as of 2021. We also projected future generation rates of spent nuclear fuels to identify what we refer to as reference spent nuclear fuels. These reference spent nuclear fuels will be used as the design basis spent fuels for evaluating the safety of the repository. Specifically, we identified four types of design basis reference spent nuclear fuels: high and low burnup from PLUS7 (with a 16×16 array) and ACE7 (with a 17×17 array) assemblies. Second, we analyzed radioactive nuclides’ inventory, activities, and decay heats, extending up to a million years after reactor discharge for these reference spent nuclear fuels. This analysis was performed using SCALE/TRITON to generate the burnup libraries and SCALE/ORIGEN for source term evaluation. Third, to assess the safety resulted from potential radioactive nuclides’ release from the disposal canister in future work, we selected safety-related radionuclides based on the ALI (Annual Limit of Intake) specified in Annex 3 of the 2019-10 notification by the NSSC (Nuclear Safety and Security Commission). Conservative assumptions were made regarding annual water intake by humans, canister design lifetime, and aquifer flow rates. A safety margin of 10-3 of the ALI was applied. We selected 56 radionuclides that exceed the intake limits and have half-lives longer than one year as the safety-related radionuclides. However, it is crucial to note that our selection criteria focused on ALI and half-lives. It did not include other essential factors such as solubility limits, distribution coefficients, and leakage processes. So, some of these nuclides can be removed in a specific analysis area depending on their properties.

The research for the safe management of high-level waste in Korea has been conducted by the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute since 1997, and the results have formed the basis of the national basic plan for the high-level waste management and the revised national basic plan. In the future, it is evolving and developing R&D focusing on securing technologies for demonstration of the disposal technologies and R&D to develop disposal concepts that increase safety and improve efficiency. Efficient management of heat generated from high-level radioactive waste, including spent nuclear fuel, is an important factor in establishing the disposal concepts because it must be in harmony with key factors such as repository layout, waste disposal container specifications, and design and operation for the barriers of the disposal system. For safe and complete isolation of highlevel radioactive waste in the deep geology, the disposal systems that meet the thermal requirements for the disposal system design have been developed by harmonizing the thermal characteristics of engineered and natural barriers in Korea. These disposal systems were based on low burn-up spent nuclear fuel characteristics generated in the early stages of nuclear power generation, and next, based on the high-level wastes from recycling process of the high burn-up spent nuclear fuels, and were the direct disposal systems for the high burn-up spent nuclear fuels. So, it is necessary to track and analyze the change process in the decay heat characteristics of the high-level waste to be disposed of in order to improve the disposal concept, which enhances the safety of disposal and the utilization of the national land. Therefore, in this paper, the process of change in decay heat of reference spent nuclear fuels for disposal applied to the disposal concepts from the initial stage of development of high-level waste disposal technology to the present in Korea is analyzed.

한국형처분시스템에 이용될 가압경수로형 사용후핵연료를 위한 KDC-1 처분용기를 개발하였다. 처분용기 안전성 평가의 일환으로서 처분용기에 대한 구조적 안전성을 평가하였다. 처분용기의 구조적 안전성은 처분조건과 취급조건 2가지로 구분하여 평가하였다. 처분조건에서는 3가지 하중 조건, 정상하중 조건, 비정상 하중 조건, 암반의 움직임을 고려하였다. 처분조건에서 평가 결과 3가지 조건에 대해 모두 안전계수가 설계기준보다 컸다. 취급조건에서는 처분용기 취급 중 구조해석과 처분용기 낙하 사고시 구조해석을 수행하였다. 취급장비 고장 시나리오 평가결과 1개 혹은 2개의 취급 장치가 고장을 일으켰을 때도 취급장비를 계속 운전하는 것이 가능하였다. 처분용기 낙하 시나리오에서는 계산결과 최대 응력은 0.762 MPa 이었으며, 이 값은 주철의 항복응력과 비교하면 거의 무시할 수 있는 값이었다. 본 논문에서 제안한 KDC-1 처분용기에 대한 처분조건 및 취급조건에서의 구조해석 결과, 한국형처분시스템에서 고려하고 있는 조건에서 그 구조적 안전성을 확인하였다.