UNF-ST&DARDS: A Unique Tool for Automated Characterization of Spent Nuclear Fuel and Related Systems

The Used Nuclear Fuel-Storage, Transportation & Disposal Analysis Resource and Data System (UNF-ST&DARDS) is being developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in collaboration with multiple national laboratories and nuclear industry participants (utilities, fuel vendors, and cask vendors) for integrating spent nuclear fuel (SNF) management through its final disposition. UNFST&DARDS seamlessly integrates a unified SNF relational database (the Unified Database) and key analysis capabilities to simplify and automate the characterization of SNF and related systems to support numerous SNF management and fuel-cycle-related activities. To date, UNF-ST&DARDS accomplishments have included (1) explicit depletion and decay analysis of every fuel assembly (~245 thousand) discharged from the commercial US reactors through June 2013 with 13 cooling time steps (results include 142 isotopes); and (2) criticality, shielding, thermal (steady state and transient), and containment analyses of hundreds of loaded casks. Additionally, UNF-ST&DARDS also provides various automated report generation capabilities with dynamic figure and plot updates based on changes made to the Unified Database.