In-Drift Natural Convection Analysis of the Low-Temperature Operating Mode Design

Yucca Mountain has been designated as the nation's high-level radioactive waste repository, and the U.S. Department of Energy has been approved to apply to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to construct a repository. The temperature and humidity inside the emplacement drift w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nuclear technology 2004-11, Vol.148 (2), p.115-124
Main Authors: Itamura, Michael T., Francis, Nicholas D., Webb, Stephen W., James, Darryl L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied sciences
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
CONTAINERS
DESIGN
Energy
Energy. Thermal use of fuels
Exact sciences and technology
Fission nuclear power plants
FLUID MECHANICS
Fuels
Heat transfer
HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
HUMIDITY
Installations for energy generation and conversion: thermal and electrical energy
LICENSES
MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE WASTES, AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
NATURAL CONVECTION
Nuclear fuels
POSITIONING
RADIOISOTOPES
SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS
Theoretical studies. Data and constants. Metering
THERMAL RADIATION
THREE-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
TRANSPORT
WASTE FORMS
WATER
YUCCA MOUNTAIN
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Summary:Yucca Mountain has been designated as the nation's high-level radioactive waste repository, and the U.S. Department of Energy has been approved to apply to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to construct a repository. The temperature and humidity inside the emplacement drift will affect the degradation rate of the waste packages and waste forms as well as the quantity of water available to transport dissolved radionuclides out of the waste canister. Thermal radiation and turbulent natural convection are the main modes of heat transfer inside the drift. This paper presents the result of three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics simulations of a segment of emplacement drift. The model contained the three main types of waste packages and was run at the time that the peak waste package temperatures are expected. Results show that thermal radiation is the dominant mode of heat transfer inside the drift. Natural convection affects the variation in surface temperature on the hot waste packages and can account for a large fraction of the heat transfer for the colder waste packages. The paper also presents the sensitivity of model results to uncertainties in several input parameters. The sensitivity study shows that the uncertainty in peak waste package temperatures due to in-drift parameters is
ISSN:0029-5450
1943-7471
DOI:10.13182/NT04-A3552