FUEL BURNUP AND FUEL POOL SHIELDING ANALYSIS FOR BUSHEHR NUCLEAR REACTOR VVER-1000

Abstract

Bushehr Nuclear power plant (BNPP) is currently under construction. The VVER-1000 reactor will be loaded with 126 tons of about 4% enriched fuel having 3-years life cycle. The spent fuel (SF) will be transferred into the spent fuel pool (SPF), where it stays for 8 years before being transferred to Russia. The SPF plays a crucial role during 8 years when the SP resides in there. This paper investigates the shielding of this structure as it is designed to shield the SF radiation. In this study, the SF isotope inventory, for different cycles and with different burnups, was calculated using WIMS/4D transport code. Using MCNP4C nuclear code, the intensity of γ rays was obtained in different layers of SFP shields. These layers include the water above fuel assemblies (FA) in pool, concrete wall of the pool and water laid above transferring fuels. Results show that γ rays leakage from the shield in the mentioned layers are in agreement with the plant's PSAR data. Finally we analyzed an accident were the water height above the FA in the pool drops to 47 cm. In this case it was observed that exposure dose above pool, 10 and 30 days from the accident, are still high and in the levels of 1000 and 758 R/hr.