NRA announced the dry cask for spent fuel of Fukushima plant might be overly vulnerable

On 12/4/2015, NRA (Nuclear Regulation Authority) announced that the dry cask to store the spent fuel assemblies can be excessively vulnerable.

In order to stock the fuel assemblies of SFP 4 (Spent Fuel Pool of Reactor 4) in the common pool, Tepco transferred the fuel assemblies from the common pool to the dry cask.

By the end of October 2014, Tepco had stocked 28 dry casks to contain 1,412 fuel assemblies. They were planning to transfer additional 1,600 fuel assemblies to more 23 dry casks. NRA reports that only 11 casks of this issued type are in actual use in Fukushima plant.

According to NRA, there is a possibility that an internal part of dry cask doesn’t have enough strength. It was designed based on the standard of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, however the standard was abolished this October, just before this scandal became public, because it did not have enough basis and overrated the strength.

 

https://www.nsr.go.jp/data/000131890.pdf

https://www.nsr.go.jp/disclosure/committee/roanshin_kakunen/00000003.html

http://www.nsr.go.jp/data/000051156.pdf

 

 

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Français :

La NRA annonce qu’à Fukushima les conteneurs secs à combustibles usagés sont trop fragiles

 

Le 4 décembre 2015, la NRA (Nuclear Regulation Authority) a déclaré que les conteneurs secs de stockage des assemblages de combustibles usagés pourraient être excessivement fragiles.

Tepco a transféré les assemblages de combustible de la piscine commune dans ces conteneurs secs pour pouvoir y mettre ceux de la SFP 4 (Spent Fuel Pool of Reactor 4 = Piscine à combustibles usagés du réacteur 4).
Fin octobre 2014, Tepco avait rempli 28 de ces conteneurs secs avec 1 412 assemblages de combustible. Ils prévoyaient d’en mettre 1 600 autres dans 23 autres conteneurs secs.

La NRA rapporte que seuls 11 conteneurs de ce ce type sont réellement utilisés dans la centrale de Fukushima. Selon la NRA, il est possible que, dans ce type de conteneur sec, un élément interne ne soit pas assez résistant. Ils ont été conçus sur la base du standard de la Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (Société japonaise des ingénieurs en mécanique), or ce standard a été abrogé en octobre dernier, juste avant que ce scandale ne devienne public, parce que l’embase est trop petite et la résistance surestimée.

https://www.nsr.go.jp/data/000131890.pdf
https://www.nsr.go.jp/disclosure/committee/roanshin_kakunen/00000003.html
http://www.nsr.go.jp/data/000051156.pdf

About this site

This website updates the latest news about the Fukushima nuclear plant and also archives the past news from 2011. Because it's always updated and added live, articles, categories and the tags are not necessarily fitted in the latest format.
I am the writer of this website. About page remains in 2014. This is because my memory about 311 was clearer than now, 2023, and I think it can have a historical value. Now I'm living in Romania with 3 cats as an independent data scientist.
Actually, nothing has progressed in the plant since 2011. We still don't even know what is going on inside. They must keep cooling the crippled reactors by water, but additionally groundwater keeps flowing into the reactor buildings from the broken parts. This is why highly contaminated water is always produced more than it can circulate. Tepco is planning to officially discharge this water to the Pacific but Tritium is still remaining in it. They dilute this with seawater so that it is legally safe, but scientifically the same amount of radioactive tritium is contained. They say it is safe to discharge, but none of them have drunk it.

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