DESIGN AND APPLICATION OF SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL CASKS FOR THE KAZAKHSTAN BN-350 PROGRAM

In 1997 the United States Department of Energy and the Kazakhstan Ministry of Science and Academy of Sciences concluded an implementing arrangement “Regarding Long-term Disposition of BN-350 Nuclear Materials” that provided for joint work to package the BN-350 fast breeder reactor spent nuclear fuel (SNF), transport it to a storage site, and store it for fifty years in a secure storage facility. Throughout this project, representatives of both the Kazakhstan and U.S. governments have provided technical oversight of the BN-350 cask development and fabrication processes. The use of foreign (Russian) SNF casks in Kazakhstan and the fabrication of the casks in both Russia and Ukraine have introduced several unique challenges, both technically and politically. This paper describes the steps and challenges the project team encountered to design, license, fabricate, test, certify, and accept the Russian-designed SNF casks for use in the BN-350 SNF Disposition Program.