Analysis of dry storage cask for accident tolerant and high burnup spent fuel

In this study, the analysis of a dry storage cask for accident-tolerant and high-burnup spent fuel was performed. For a dry storage cask design currently in use, in case of loading with the accident-tolerant fuel discharged from PWR type light water reactor, criticality, dose rate calculations and thermal analyzes were performed. In the first part of the study, for an high-burnup accident-tolerant fuel selected among the designs proposed for use in light water reactors, burnup analysis were performed by utilizing the Serpent continuous energy code and spent fuel chcractheristics were determined. Criticality analyzes were carried out by using the Serpent Monte Carlo code for the case of loading the accident tolerant fuel into a dry storage cask design which is widely used today. In addition, gamma and neutron dose rates at the outer surface and close distances of the storage cask were determined with the Serpent code. In order to evaluate the thermal performance of the storage cask, thermal analyzes were performed by using the ANSYS Fluent computational fluid dynamics code. The analysis results were compared with the nuclear safety criteria applied to the dry storage casks. Results of the calculations showed that, dry storage cask design does not exceed the criticality, dose rate and maximum surface temperature limits when loaded with high-burnup spent accident tolerant fuel precooled for 5 years.