Requiem for a Heavy Metal: The Spent Fuel Database

For a plant constructing an Interim Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI), it is a major task to assemble all needed spent fuel data prior to long term spent fuel storage. The plant owner must prepare detailed as-built and operating information for each fuel assembly for three purposes: for the design and licensing of the storage system; to assure that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) license requirements are fulfilled at the time of canister loading; and to assure that Department of Energy (DOE) requirements are met when the fuel is accepted for final disposal. The data collection task is further complicated by several factors. Current requirements are incompletely defined, and the list of required spent fuel data is likely to change before the fuel’s eventual pickup by DOE. For older plants, some records may have been lost or may not have the quality assurance “pedigree” desired by NRC and DOE. For decommissioning plants moving their spent fuel into an ISFSI, it is highly desirable that all the spent fuel information be collected at one time, since much of the infrastructure and the institutional memory of the plant’s staff will be lost. At a plant in the Northeast United States, where a dry storage ISFSI containing the spent fuel in sealed, dual-purpose canisters is being constructed, a database has been developed to collect and store the detailed spent fuel information. The database includes dimensions, burnups, isotopics, fuel performance history and other data. The development and construction of this database is described.