Challenge:
Leakage of borated water from a Spent Fuel Pool (SFP) has lead to a hypothesized degradation of the slab and walls behind the liner up to a worst case calculated depth of 1.12 in. The purposes of our study were to evaluate the walls, slab, and stainless steel liner for the postulated degradation. In addition, several worst case liner/gap/support geometries were identified and modeled to bound the problem.
Resolution:
The degraded concrete walls and slab were analyzed and found to have sufficient reserve capacity. The liner plates and leveling pedestal/fuel rack supports were modeled and evaluated using Finite Element Analysis. Stress intensities were calculated and compared with allowables per ASME and ANSI codes. The liner plate strains were found to remain within the limits of the code. Therefore, the postulated degradation was shown not to be of structural significance.
