Comparison of MCNP and Microshield Dose Savings Determinations for Remote Methods of Transuranic Contamination Characterization.

The maturation of robotic and remote systems presents opportunities to expand the use of technologies that have typically been restricted to high-dose/high-risk nuclear work for moderate- or low-risk work to further reduce radiation exposure to workers. This study quantifies the potential dose savings achieved through the use of robotic techniques for characterizing transuranic-contaminated waste items and compares dose estimates from a simplistic, user-friendly deterministic radiation transport code and a more robust, complex Monte Carlo code. Three scenarios of transuranic-contaminated waste items described in published reports are modeled using representative source geometries in MicroShield and MCNP radiation transport codes.

A new non-diffusional gas bubble production route in used nuclear fuel: implications for fission gas release, cladding corrosion, and next generation fuel design.

A novel relationship between noble metal phase particles and fission gas bubble production in used nuclear fuel is described. The majority of Te atoms within noble metal phase undergo radioactive decay to form stable Xe within a few hours after particle formation. This results in the production of clusters of Xe atoms contained within the solid metal matrix exhibiting an equivalent gas bubble pressure approaching 1 GPa.

Chemical and Isotopic Characterization of Noble Metal Phase from Commercial UO Fuel.

We report elemental and isotopic analysis for the noble metal fission product phase found in irradiated nuclear fuel. The noble metal phase was isolated from three commercial irradiated UO fuels by chemically dissolving the UO fuel matrix, leaving the noble metal phase as the undissolved residue. Macro amounts of this residue were dissolved using a KOH + KNO fusion and then chemically separated into individual elements for analysis by mass spectrometry.