Experimental Investigation of Aerosol Release from Spent Nuclear Fuel Fractures

A novel experiment design for collecting and characterizing radioactive aerosols released from mechanical SNF fractures is presented in this study. The experiment incorporates a modified Sioutas Cascade Impactor capable of sampling aerosol particles ≤15 μm AED. The isotopic mass distributions of aerosol particles collected from the preliminary experiment are presented, and the collection trends are discussed. Further characterization of future test collections will be completed using particle imaging techniques such as electron microscopy to further verify particle sizes. It is important to acknowledge that fuel failure and aerosol dispersion from fuel can yield different source terms based on a number of factors, not the least of which is rod internal pressure and also including the type of SNF rod, the reactor type, the parent rod axial position of the SNF segment fractured, and so on. Hence, future experiments under this study extended to a range of pressurized fuel types to collect SNF respirable aerosol mass and size distributions as a function of burnup, fuel type, and fuel property (e.g., internal pressure, heat treatment and power rating) would be beneficial.