Spent Fuel Degradation

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe degradation and dissolution of spent nuclear fuel in groundwaters occurs by three partly concurrent processes: dissolution of mobile species which have migrated to the fuel rod void, grain boundary attack and matrix dissolution. Of the first two processes, both clearly dependent on the irradiation history of the fuel, the first is fairly well understood, but there is currently insufficient data on the migration of key nuclides to grain boundaries during reactor operation and their release kinetics during subsequent water corrosion to enable satisfactory modelling of this process to be performed.This paper presents results from recent experiments included in the Swedish programme which are relevant to this issue.