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US 9,543,047 B2Granted
System and method for storing fresh and irradiated nuclear fuel
AssigneeGE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy Americas LLC
InventorsMaria E. Falcone, Scott L. Pfeffer, Elizabeth B. Umhoefer
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Abstract
A method for storing nuclear fuel includes transferring a fuel assembly from a long term storage vault to a nuclear reactor core, removing the fuel assembly from the nuclear reactor core, determining a heat generation rate of the irradiated fuel assembly, and transferring the irradiated fuel assembly to one of an interim storage vault and a long term storage vault based on the determined heat generation rate.
Claims11
A method for storing nuclear fuel, the method comprising:
- providing a system including an interim storage vault and a long term storage vault to a nuclear reactor site;
- transferring a fuel assembly from the long term storage vault to a nuclear reactor core to irradiate the fuel assembly;
- removing the irradiated fuel assembly from the nuclear reactor core;
- determining a heat generation rate of the irradiated fuel assembly;
- transferring the irradiated fuel assembly to one of the interim storage vault and the long term storage vault based on the determined heat generation rate;
- and
- transferring the irradiated fuel assembly from the long term storage vault to the nuclear core.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.