An approach for spent nuclear fuel containment integrity verification using gas tagging

Abstract

Verification of containment integrity is required for spent nuclear fuel (SNF) management systems managed by the commercial nuclear industry and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), especially after extended storage. Some SNF storage systems hold several smaller containments within a larger container. Leakage identification of these inaccessible containments is challenging because their contents are often similar. This could result in costly repackaging operations if compromised containments are suspected. This paper presents a xenon gas tagging approach for uniquely identifying SNF containments. A road-ready dry storage system is considered with two different DOE-managed SNF loading configurations. The required taggant volume is driven primarily by the lower detection limit and leak rate of taggant from a compromised containment, rather than the amount of fission-generated xenon within the SNF. While the approach presented is suited for larger leaks, this gas tagging approach can be applied to smaller leaks and other SNF management systems.