Concept of the Encapsulation Process and Equipment for the Spent Fuel Disposal

심지층 처분을 위한 사용후핵연료 포장공정 장비개념 설정

Spent nuclear fuels are regarded as a high level radioactive waste and they will be disposed in a deep geological repository. To maintain the safety of the repository for hundreds of thousands of years, the spent fuels are encapsulated in a disposal canister and the canister containing spent fuels should have the structural integrity and the corrosion resistance below the several hundreds meters from the ground surface. In this study, the concept of the spent fuel encapsulation process and the process equipment fur deep geological disposal were established. To do this, the design requirements, such as the functions and the spent fuel accumulations, were reviewed. Also, the design principles and the bases were established. Based on the requirements and the bases, the encapsulation process and the equipment from spent fuel receiving process to transferring canister into the underground repository including hot cell processes was established. The established concept of the spent fuel encapsulation process and the process equipment will be improved continuously with the future studies. And this concept can be effectively used in implementing the reference repository system of our own case.