This internal pressurization may cause the initial fractures in the canister and overpack to grow. Such an event would release enough energy to boil the water between the fuel rods and pressurize the cannister. Fresh water is a neutron moderator thus, if the canister internals and fuel assemblies have been sufficiently degraded, a criticality event could occur. A breach in the canister could allow groundwater to fill the canister. Over geological timescales, it is envisioned that the canister and canister overpack will develop fractures due to stress corrosion processes. Post closure criticality control is an important aspect of this investigation. Department of Energy Office of Spent Fuel and Waste Science & Technology is investigating the performance of DPCs for direct geological disposal of spent nuclear fuel. The work is being done to enable a coupled mechanical-thermal-hydraulic analysis of a potential criticality event in a dual purpose cannister (DPC). Sandia National Laboratories has hired Itasca Consulting Group, Inc., the authors of the FLAC3D geomechanics software, to couple FLAC3D with TOUGH3, the porous media flow solver.
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