ASNF modeling data

A significant quantity of aluminum-clad spent nuclear fuel (ASNF) is currently managed by the United States (U.S.) Department of Energy (DOE) at several sites in the U.S. Much of this fuel develops a corrosion layer with adsorbed water either through pre-corrosion, in-reactor, or in wet storage depending on the source. Gamma radiation from the fuel after removal from the reactor can cause evolution of hydrogen from this corrosion layer. For long-term safety it is desirable to remove the adsorbed water from the fuel surface to limit the production of hydrogen gases when the fuel is placed in road-ready sealed canisters for eventual final disposition. This study presents a series of modeled experiments showing the effectiveness of both forced helium drying and vacuum drying methods for the removal of water from surrogate fuel assemblies. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model is constructed to replicate the drying processes and simulate the experiments.