Safety verification of radiation shielding and heat transfer for a model for dry

• New type of dry spent fuel storage was designed.
• MC method and FEM were used to verify the reliability of new storage.
• Radiation shield and heat transfer both meet IAEA standards: 2 mSv/h, 0.1 mSv/h and 190 °C, 85 °C.
• Provided possibilities for future implementation of this type of dry storage.

The goal of this research is to develop a type of dry spent fuel storage called CHN-24 container, which could contain an equivalent load of 45 GWD/MTU of spent fuel after 10 years cooling. Basically, radiation shielding performance and safe removal of decay heat, which play important roles in the safety performance, were checked and validated using the Monte Carlo method and finite element analysis to establish the radiation dose rate calculation model and three-dimensional heat transfer model for the CHN-24 container. The dose rates at the surface of the container and at a distance of 1 m from the surface were 0.42 mSv/h and 0.06 mSv/h, respectively. These conform to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) radioactive material transportation safety standards 2 mSv/h and 0.1 mSv/h. The results shows that the CHN-24 container maintains its structural and material integrity under the condition of normal thermal steady-state heat transfer as well as in case of extreme fire as evinced by transient-state analysis. The temperature inside and on the surface of the container were 150.91 °C and 80 °C under normal storage conditions, which indicated that the design also conform to IAEA heat transfer safety standards of 190 °C and 85 °C.