Taylor & Francis Group
Browse
ycst_a_1463009_sm3077.pdf (199.91 kB)

Corrosion of copper-coated used nuclear fuel containers due to oxygen trapped in a Canadian deep geological repository

Download (199.91 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2018-04-17, 05:32 authored by David S. Hall, Thalia E. Standish, Mehran Behazin, Peter G. Keech

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization is evaluating the safety and feasibility of the permanent disposal of used nuclear fuel in a deep geological repository. Their current design concept utilises copper-coated steel used fuel containers to isolate the waste from the environment. Immediately following repository closure, a finite quantity of O2 will be trapped inside the repository and could cause some amount of oxic corrosion to the outer copper layer of the containers. On a per container basis, 13 mol of O2 will be trapped in the repository rooms at the time of closure, based on reference design dimensions. This corresponds to a maximum depth of copper corrosion of 81 μm, assuming a uniform distribution. This work also considers the sensitivity of this oxic corrosion allowance to various hypothetical design changes to the repository that may occur before or during construction.

Funding

This work was funded by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO). Thalia Standish thanks the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS) and Mitacs Accelerate programmes for research and scholarship support.

History