Aging management of nuclear fuel pool structures

The long-term operations of a nuclear power plant (NPP) are currently impacted by the utility's capabilities with respect to spent fuel storage. Available options for the safe, long-term storage of spent fuel are quite limited; as such, maximized usage of existing on-site storage capacity (NPP) is quite important. The service life of existing fuel pool structures may be determined by a number of operations or age-related events. Management of these events is often critical to the structure's integrity and durability. From an operations vantage point, aging management relates to such characteristics as storage capacity, performance of pool water treatment systems, and physical liner damage. Primary issues related to structural integrity include materials degradation and environmental enclosure factors. The development of an effective aging management program should address both operational and structural issues. The goal of this paper is to provide recommendations for pool structure aging management, with benefits to both short and long-term, or extended life, operations. Because of their critical nature, the report will focus on spent fuel pools. Many of the concepts generated in this report may also be applied to other NPP pool structures (i.e., new fuel pools, reactor internals pits and transfer canals) because of similar more » physical/environmental effects. « less