The thermal integrity of spent nuclear fuels has to be maintained during their long-term dry storage. The detailed temperature distributions of spent fuel assemblies are essential for evaluating the integrity of their dry storage systems. In this study, a subchannel analysis model was developed for a canister of a single fuel assembly using the COBRA-SFS code. The thermal parameters affecting the peak cladding temperature (PCT) of the spent fuel assembly were identified, and sensitivity analyses were performed based on these parameters. The subchannel analysis results indicated the presence of a recirculation flow, based on natural convection, between the fuel assembly and downcomer region. The sensitivity analysis of the thermal parameters indicated that the PCT was affected by the emissivity of the fuel cladding and basket, convective heat transfer coefficient, and thermal conductivity of the fluid. However, the effects of the wall friction factor of the canister, form loss coefficient of the grid spacers, and thermal conductivities of the solid materials, on the PCT were predominantly ignored.

This study is to investigate fuel cladding temperature in a transport system for the purpose of developing a methodology for evaluating the thermal performance of spent fuel. Detailed temperature analysis in the transport system is important because the degradation mechanism of the fuel cladding is generally sensitive to temperature and temperature history. In such a system, the magnitude of the temperature change is determined by examining the temperature sensitivity of fuel assemblies and system components including fuel cladding temperature, considering the material properties, component specifications, component aging mechanism, and heat transfer mechanism. The sensitivity analysis is performed using heat transfer models by computational fluid dynamics for the horizontal transport system. The heat transfer within the system by convection, conduction and thermal radiation is calculated by thermal-hydraulic analysis code FLUENT. The calculation region is divided into a basket cell and a transport cask. The thermal analysis of the basket cell is for predicting the fuel cladding temperature. And the reason for analyzing the transport cask is to provide the boundary condition for the basket cell by reflecting the external environmental conditions. Here, the basket cell containing the spent fuel assembly is modeled on the homogeneous effective thermal conductivity. The purpose of this analysis is to evaluate fuel cladding temperatures for the following four main items. That is the effect of surface emissivity changes in basket due to the oxide layer of the fuel cladding, the effect of degradation of the canister backfill helium gas, the effect of fuel assembly position in basket cell on fuel cladding and basket temperatures in canister, and the effect of using the homogeneous effective thermal conductivity model instead of the fuel assembly in basket cell. As a result of the analysis, the maximum temperatures in basket cells are evaluated for the above four items. Thermal margins for each item are investigated for thermal performance requirements (e.g., peak clad temperature below 400oC).

A thermal-optical transmittance carbon analyzer has been developed to determine particulate organic (OC) and elemental (EC) carbon. Several analysis factors affecting the sensitivity of OC and EC determination were investigated for the carbon analyzer. Although total carbon (TC) is usually consistent in the determination, OC and EC split is sensitive to adopted analysis protocol. In this study the maximum temperature in oxygen-free He in the analysis was examined as a main cause of the uncertainty. Prior to the sensitivity analysis consistency in OC-EC determination of the carbon analyzer and the uniformity of carbonaceous aerosol loading on a sampled filter were checked to be in acceptable range. EC/TC ratios were slightly decreased with increasing the maximum temperature between 550-800oC. For the increase of maximum temperature from 500oC to 800oC, the EC/TC ratio was lowered by 4.65-5.61% for TC loading of 13-44 μg/cm2 with more decrease at higher loading. OC and EC determination was not influenced by trace amount of oxygen in pure He (>99.999%), which is typically used in OC and EC analysis. The facing of sample loaded surface to incident laser beam showed negligible influence in the OC-EC split, but it caused elevated PC fraction in OC for forward facing relative to backward facing.