UCS fuel cladding failure analysis

UCS fuel cladding failure analysis
April 12, 2002 The following report has recently been provided to the Environmental History Archives of The Davistown Museum as a result of a recent request to UCS for updated information on fuel cladding failures at US NRC supervised reactors.  To the best of our knowledge this UCS report has not previously been posted on the web.  This report, however, contains important additional information about a variety of precursors that can lead to full blown fuel cladding failure, i.e. loss of fuel pellets from fuel rods within fuel assemblies.  An understanding of these processes may help to shed light on the fuel cladding failures at the Maine Yankee Atomic Power Company (MYAPC) that are documented by confidential licensee records obtained by the Center for Biological Monitoring in January of 1999.  A selection of confidential MYAPC documents noting fuel pellets in vacuum filters in the spent fuel pool was posted on the RADNET website.  These documents have continuing relevance for the decommissioning process now underway at Wiscasset: as the UCS report makes clear (but with no mention of the MYAPC fuel cladding failures) failures resulting in the discharge of fuel pellets are infrequent, or at least poorly documented.  The fact that fuel pellets were vacuumed from the environs of the MYAPC spent fuel pool clearly suggests loss-of-radiological controls occurred during reactor operations contaminating both the reactor vessel and the reactor water systems with mass-wasted fuel pellet-derived spent fuel isotopes.  The RADNET website contains numerous documents, reports, letters and datum which in their totality begin the process of documenting fuel cladding failures at MYAPC.  Unfortunately, the ill advised decision to rush ahead with physical deconstruction of the MYAPC facility prior to documenting the source term of fuel cladding failure releases complicates and enhances the ultimate impact of these failures.
http://www.davistownmuseum.org/cbm/RadxFailedFuelClad.html?goback=.gde_2170900_member_5800203532082626561#!