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Center for Used Fuel Research: Building confidence in storage and transport
Used nuclear fuel storage and transportation have reached a critical juncture.
Dozens of utilities need reliable data on how used nuclear fuel performs in dry storage casks and canisters to extend regulatory licenses at sites across the United States. Likewise, the Department of Energy expects to take ownership of the used nuclear fuel—termed “spent nuclear fuel” in the laws and regulations governing its stewardship—and transfer it to one or more federal staging facilities for management and disposition.
Meanwhile, dozens of reactor companies are testing prototypes of advanced reactors and advanced reactor fuels. Eventually, regulators and industry must also verify the safety and security of storage methods for these advanced fuel types.
To help address these challenges, the DOE established the Center for Used Fuel Research (CUFR) in January 2026 for work related to the long-term storage and transport of used nuclear fuel.
William Chuirazzi, Aaron Craft, Burkhard Schillinger, Nicholas Boulton, Glen Papaioannou, Amanda Smolinski, Kyrone Riley, Andrew Smolinski, Michael Ruddell
Nuclear Technology | Volume 208 | Number 3 | March 2022 | Pages 455-467
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2021.1905471
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Scintillator screens consisting of a dysprosium neutron converter and various scintillator materials were tested in the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum Forschungsreaktor München II (FRM II) ANTARES cold neutron beam with the goal of finding a suitable screen for digital transfer method neutron radiography. This work explores the cold neutron response of 16 scintillator screens, 7 of which were previously tested with thermal neutrons. Light yield, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and spatial resolution were measured to compare the scintillator screens and determine which were best suited for digital transfer method neutron radiography. Screens with a zinc sulfide (ZnS:Cu) scintillator were most suitable for digital transfer method radiography based on light output, spatial resolution, SNR, and gamma-ray insensitivity. Spatial resolutions between 65 and 220 μm were measured. The top-performing screens were then used to demonstrate the feasibility of a new digital transfer method neutron radiography to image highly radioactive (8.84 Sv/h at ≈1 cm) nuclear fuel at Idaho National Laboratory’s Neutron Radiography reactor (NRAD). These results suggest that digital transfer method neutron radiography can be used to indirectly image highly radioactive objects and/or use neutron beams with a large gamma-ray content on a timescale of ~10 min/image (~144 images/day), much faster than the >10 h required using the current transfer method with film (limited to ~14 radiographs/day at NRAD).