ML23214A081
| ML23214A081 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | 07109341 |
| Issue date: | 08/04/2023 |
| From: | Pierre Saverot Storage and Transportation Licensing Branch |
| To: | Carrie Safford Division of Fuel Management |
| Shared Package | |
| ML23214A079 | List: |
| References | |
| EPID L-2023-LLA-0090 | |
| Download: ML23214A081 (5) | |
Text
UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION WASHINGTON, D.C. 20555-0001 MEMORANDUM TO: Carrie Safford, Deputy Director Division of Fuel Management Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards FROM: Pierre Saverot, Project Manager Storage and Transportation Licensing Branch Division of Fuel Management Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards
SUBJECT:
SUMMARY
OF JULY 31, 2023, MEETING WITH ORANO FEDERAL SERVICES
Background
On July 31, 2023, an Observation Public Meeting was held by teleconference between the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff and representatives from Orano Federal Services (Orano) to discuss a pending amendment request for the Model No. BRR package. This meeting was noticed on July 10, 2023 (Agencywide Documents Access and Management System [ADAMS] Accession No. ML23191A019).
The meeting attendance list and the presentation are provided as enclosure number 1 and 2 respectively.
Discussion The BEA Research Reactor (BRR) package, licensed in 2010 to transport irradiated research reactor fuel, is designed for operation in either a pool or a hot cell. Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC (BEA) and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) request the addition of segmented and encapsulated commercial fuel rods (Rods-in-Tubes or RIT) to the packaging contents.
New payloads include either pressurized-water reactor or boiling-water reactor (BWR) commercial fuel segments, with enrichments up to 5 percent, cooled a minimum of 1 year, with either stainless or zircaloy cladding, with the mass of fuel segments being bounded by the 8x8 BWR assembly with pellets with an initial diameter of 0.41 inches.
CONTACT: Pierre Saverot, NMSS/DFM 301-415-7505August 4, 2023 Signed by Saverot, Pierre on 08/04/23
C. Safford 2
Two burnup/enrichment categories are proposed: (i) a category A with a 0.74 percent-5 percent enrichment range, and a maximum burnup of 100 GWd/MTU, and (ii) a category B with either a 3 percent-5 percent enrichment range, with a maximum burnup of 85 GWd/MTU or a 0.74 percent-5 percent enrichment range and a maximum burnup of 50 GWd/MTU.
RITs may contain multiple rod segments but there is only one RIT allowed per canister tube. An aluminum rod in tube canister (RITC) holds the RITs in a basket made of aluminum. There is a maximum of 4 RITCs per basket, 2 stacked in each opening; Category A, as defined above, will only fill one RITC carrier tube while up to 12 half-length RITs for Category B and up to 4 half-length RITs for Category A can be inserted into the basket.
The applicant explained that, for the evaluation of the source term, high burnups exceed ORIGEN data resources since reactor libraries are limited to 70 GWd/MTU. NRC staff agreed with the statement made but also observed that, if the applicant was to use Triton or Polaris, there is no limit on burnup with these codes. In order to calculate bounding source terms at higher burnups, the applicant used multiple source terms calculated at lower burnups and extrapolated them using a linear behavior to calculate the higher burnups; staff agreed that such an approach was conservative.
Three different payloads were evaluated: 2 full encapsulation tubes of 100 GWd/MTU segments, 6 full encapsulation tubes of 85 GWd/MTU segments, and 6 full encapsulation tubes of 50 GWd/MTU segments. Staff asked if different or extreme reconfiguration scenarios, other than those presented, were looked at, i.e., the consequences of shifting a rod segment up in the basket, or shifting rod segments to the side to get closer to the cavity wall, etc. Regarding criticality, evaluations were performed using MCNP6.2 and Whisper-1.1: staff did acknowledge a lack of experience with the Whisper module but, said it will also consider the very large margins of the results, i.e., a maximum ksafe (keff+ 2) of 0.70391, and a USL of 0.92164.
The NCT thermal analysis is bounded by the previously approved thermal evaluation; the applicant also concluded that the hypothetical accident conditions (HAC) analysis will be bounded too by the previous analyses: thus, there is no need to perform an HAC analysis in this amendment request. NRC staff suggested that the application should state that the loading/vacuum will be also bounded by the previous analysis and requested a table to be added to the safety analysis report (SAR) to show helium leak test conditions (test method, test components, frequency, and test criteria) for fabrication, pre-shipment, periodic and maintenance tests.
When the potential fabrication of components was addressed at the end of the meeting, staff noted that Orano, as the certificate of compliance (CoC) holder, is responsible for design and fabrication in accordance with its CoC and SAR. The staffs expectation is that ORANO would audit and approve INL for fabrication services for compliance to Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations Part 71 Subpart H.
C. Safford 3
Orano is contemplating a September submittal and requested issuance of the revised CoC in the March-April 2024 timeframe. No regulatory commitments were made during this meeting.
Docket No. 71-9341 EPID L-2023-LLA-0090
Enclosures:
- 1. Meeting Attendees
- 2. Presentation
Pkg: ML23214A079; Memo & Encl 1: ML23214A081; Encl 2: ML23214A080 OFFICE DFM DFM DFM NAME PSaverot JCurry YDiaz-Sanabria DATE 08/02/2023 08/03/2023 08/04/2023
Meeting Between Orano Federal Services and the The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission July 31, 2023, Meeting Attendees
NRC
Pierre Saverot Andrew Barto Logan Crevelt Jimmy Chang Yong Kim
ORANO FEDERAL SERVICES
Chris Backus Rich Smith Phil Noss Dan Wick Erik Gonsiorowski
IDAHO NATIONAL LABORATORY
Eric C Woolstenhulme Nick Adams
Enclosure 1