The Fukushima-Daiichi accident in 2011 revealed the limitations of Zr-alloys in accident scenarios where severe steam oxidation led to the liberation of heat and hydrogen and the destruction of the reactor core. In response to this accident, there has been a concerted effort by industry, national laboratories, and universities to develop cladding and fuel materials for lightwater reactors (LWRs) that are more accident tolerant. The near-term approach has been to develop coatings for Zr-alloys that would provide additional safety and operational margin by virtue of its excellent corrosion/oxidation resistance at both normal and accident conditions. The designs being considered for implementation by major nuclear fuel suppliers include a thin Cr or a ceramic coating on the conventional LWR fuel cladding. For improved economics, the industries are also considering ATF coated cladding with high enrichment fuel (up to 8%) to achieve high burnup (> 75 GWd/MTU). While the development of ATF concepts (i.e., the front end of the fuel cycle), including coated claddings and doped fuels have progressed at an accelerated pace, relatively less attention has been devoted to the used fuel disposition of ATF fuels (i.e., the backend of the fuel cycle). For accelerated deployment of the ATF designs in the current LWR fleet, it is necessary to investigate technical aspects of the ATF used nuclear fuel (UNF) management in transportation, storage, and disposal. This presentation will provide a brief overview of state-of-the-art ATF developments and list out potential considerations to apply the fuels into back-end fuel cycle. New test plan should be planned to compare the characteristics of current LWR used nuclear fuels with those of the new fuel designs. For example, research focus can be understanding of ATF used fuel particulate size and quantity (at high burnup condition) and mechanical integrity of coated cladding under normal and off-normal conditions during transportation and long-term storage. Finally, the impacts of CRUD on the new fuel cladding, increased container weight, temperature, and radiation level to the back-end fuel cycle activities need to be investigated.

Al-B4C neutron absorbers are currently widely used to maintain the subcriticality of both wet and dry storage facilities of spent nuclear fuel (SNF), thus long-term and high-temperature material integrity of the absorbers has to be guaranteed for the expected operation periods of those facilities. Surface corrosion solely has been the main issue for the absorber performance and safety; however, the possibility of irradiation-assisted degradation has been recently suggested from an investigation on Al-B4C surveillance coupons used in a Korean spent nuclear fuel pool (SFP). Larger radiation damage than expectation was speculated to be induced from 10B(n, α)7Li reactions, which emit about a MeV α-particles and Li ions. In this study, we experimentally emulated the radiation damage accumulated in an Al-B4C neutron absorber utilizing heavy-ion accelerator. The absorber specimens were irradiated with He ions at various estimated system temperatures for a model SNF storage facility (room temperature, 150, 270, and 400°C). Through the in-situ heated ion irradiation, three exponentially increasing level of radiation damages (0.01, 0.1, and 1 dpa or displacement per atom) were achieved to compare differential gas bubble formation at near surface of the absorber, which could cause premature absorber corrosion and subsequential 10B loss in an SNF storage system. An extremely high radiation damage (10 dpa), which is unlikely achievable during a dry storage period, was also emulated through high temperature irradiation (350°C) to further test the radiation resistance of the absorber, conservatively. The irradiated specimens were characterized using HR-TEM and the average size and number density of radiation-induced He bubbles were measured from the obtained bright field (BF) TEM micrographs. Measured helium bubble sizes tend to increase with increasing system (or irradiation) temperature while decrease in their number density. Helium bubbles were found from even the lowest radiation damage specimens (0.01 dpa). Bubble coalescence was significant at grain boundaries and the irradiated specimen morphology was particularly similar with the bubble morphology observed at the interface between aluminum alloy matrix and B4C particle of the surveillance coupons. These characterized irradiated specimens will be used for the corrosion test with high-temperature humid gas to further study the irradiation-assisted degradation mechanism of the absorber in dry SNF storage system.

An options study was performed for the treatment of residual elemental sodium in driver plenums following the chopping operation during the pyroprocessing of used nuclear fuel. Given the pending availability of a multi-function furnace for distillation and consolidation operations in the Fuel Conditioning Facility, the furnace was considered for the processing of driver plenums. Although two options (oxidation and distillation) could be performed in the multi-function furnace, neither option has been developed sufficiently to date to warrant the use of the furnace for treatment operations. Thus, it was decided to defer the treatment of elemental sodium from driver plenums in the multi-function furnace until more developed technologies and/or furnaces become available. In the interim, storage of the plenums and characterization efforts are recommended.