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Spent Fuel Management
Published in James H. Saling, Audeen W. Fentiman, Radioactive Waste Management, 2018
James H. Saling, Audeen W. Fentiman
Metal cask (stationary and transportable). A metal cask MRS facility uses large metal casks for the storage and/or transportation of canisters of spent fuel or reprocessing wastes. The facility consists of the following elements: Large metal casks into which the spent fuel or reprocessing wastes are placed for storage. Being sufficiently shielded and with adequate cooling capability, a loaded cask will keep both the radiation dose to its exterior and the temperature in the stored wastes at acceptable levels.An on-site transporter to carry the loaded casks from the receiving and handling facility to the storage area or vice versa.A mobile straddle crane to remove the loaded cask from the transporter and place it on the storage pad and vice versa.A suitable foundation (e.g., a reinforced concrete pad) for storage of arrays of casks.A system for monitoring the integrity of the cask seals and for detecting releases of radioactive materials.
Assessment of Factory Fabrication Considerations for Nuclear Microreactors
Published in Nuclear Technology, 2023
Abdalla Abou-Jaoude, Yasir Arafat, Chandrakanth Bolisetti, Botros Hanna, Joshua Belvedere, James Blocker, Brandon Cooper, Shanda Harmon, Dan McCarthy
Dry casks consist of metal or concrete cylindrical shells (e.g., outer enclosure and canister shell) or plates (e.g., fuel baskets or closure plates) that are welded or bolted together. Jet engines, on the other hand, are carefully optimized for performance. This leads to relatively complex geometries (e.g., see Ref.[23] for a review of jet engine fan blade geometries) and more custom fabrication needs. Despite these challenges, jet engines are still mass produced in factories with streamlined supply chains and manufacturing systems. This is primarily due to consistently high demand and decades of experience in their production. As the market demand, and consequently the production rate, of microreactors increases to high hundreds and low thousands a year, commercial jet engines could be a suitable model to emulate for their factory production. (See Table I for approximate production rates of these products and how requirements compare with microreactors.)