SUBURFACE SHIELDING-SPECIFIC SOURCE TERM EVALUATION

The purpose of this work is to provide supporting calculations for determination of the radiation source terms specific to subsurface shielding design and analysis. These calculations are not intended to provide the absolute values of the source terms, which are under the charter of the Waste Package Operations (WPO) Group. Rather, the calculations focus on evaluation of the various combinations of fuel enrichment, burnup and cooling time for a given decay heat output, consistent with the waste package (WP) thermal design basis. The objective is to determine the worst-case combination of the fuel characteristics (enrichment, burnup and cooling time) which would give the maximum radiation fields for subsurface shielding considerations. The calculations are limited to PWR fuel only, since the WP design is currently evolving with thinner walls and a reduced heat load as compared to the viability assessment (VA) reference design. The results for PWR fuel will provide a comparable indication of the trend for BWR fuel, as their characteristics are similar. The source term development for defense high-level waste and other spent nuclear fuel (SNF) is the responsibility of the WPO Group, and therefore, is not included this work. This work includes the following items responsive to the stated purpose and objective: (1) Determine the possible fuel parameters (initial enrichment, burnup and cooling time), that give the same decay heat value as specified for the waste package thermal design; (2) Obtain the neutron and gamma source terms for the various combinations of the fuel parameters for use in radiation field calculations; and (3) Calculate radiation fields on the surfaces of the waste package and its transporter to quantify the effects of the fuel parameters with the same decay heat value for use in identifying the worst-case combination of the fuel parameters