Sebastian Reinicke presents the experimental infrastructure developed as part of the research project "Fundamental R&D Work on Methods for Monitoring the Condition of Transport and Storage Containers for Spent Fuel Elements and Heat-Generating High-Level Radioactive Waste During Extended Interim Storage (DCS-Monitor).”
Background:
Due to the ongoing search for a final disposal site for high-level radioactive waste in Germany, spent fuel assemblies must be stored temporarily at nuclear power plant sites for extended periods. However, it is currently not sufficiently known whether the integrity of the fuel assemblies could be compromised over a period of several decades, for example due to pressure buildup caused by the formation of gaseous decay products. Extrapolative modeling of the radiochemical and thermomechanical behavior of materials is very difficult. For this reason, there is interest in methods for non-invasively determining the condition of fuel assemblies in transport and storage containers.
Objective:
The overall objective of the project is to evaluate various physical measurement principles, procedures, and methods for the non-invasive monitoring of the condition of the inventory in transport and storage containers during extended interim storage. The aim is to identify ways to detect changes in the fuel assemblies or the container structures over very long periods of several decades without opening the containers. A suitable method or combination of methods could thus make an important contribution to the long-term safety of highly radioactive waste in interim storage, as such a method would allow conclusions to be drawn about the waste’s transportability and conditioning suitability prior to transfer to a final repository.
The DCS-Monitor collaborative project is funded by the BMWi.
Contact
Director, Institute for Process Engineering, Process Automation, and Measurement Technology (IPM)
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Alexander Kratzsch
Phone: 03583 612 4282
Email: a.kratzsch@hszg.de