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Bounding Estimates for Critical Events When Directly Disposing Highly Enriched Spent Nuclear Fuel in Unsaturated Tuff
Authors:Rob P Rechard  Martin S Tierney  Larry C Sanchez  Mary-Alena Martell
Institution:Sandia National Laboratories, P.O. Box 5800, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185–1328.
Abstract:This paper examines the possibility of criticality in a nuclear waste repository. The estimated probabilities are rough bounds and do not entirely dismiss the possibility of a critical condition; however, they do point to the difficulty of creating conditions under which a critical mass could be assembled (i.e., corrosion of containers, separation of neutron absorbers from the fissile material, and collapse or precipitation of the fissile material). In addition, should a criticality occur in or near a container, the bounding consequence calculations showed that fissions from one critical event are quite small (<˜1020 fissions, if similar to aqueous and metal accidents and experiments). Furthermore, a reasonable upper bound of total critical events of 1028 fissions corresponds to only 0.1% of the number of fissions represented by the spent nuclear fuel inventory in a repository containing 70,000 metric tons of heavy metal (MTHM) (the expected size for the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada).
Keywords:Criticality  nuclear waste repository  highly enriched spent nuclear fuel  risk assessment  performance assessment
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