CONCLUSIONS

Procedures have been developed to estimate the nuclear mass inventory, the photon dose rate and the thermal decay heat of spent research reactor fuel assemblies. The procedures should provide reasonable estimates based upon known fuel assembly parameters. Estimates for an example spent fuel assembly are given in Appendix D.

Isotopic mass inventories of U, Np, Pu and Am are tabulated in Tables 2-7 for MTR, TRIGA and DIDO fuel assembly types; photon dose rates at 1 m in air are shown in Table 8 for MTR-type fuel assemblies; and analytical expressions are given for the thermal decay heat load of spent uranium fuel. Estimates of TRIGA and DIDO fuel assembly dose rates are respectively, factors of 1.04 and 1.05 times the dose rate for MTR-type fuel assemblies with similar spent fuel material characteristics.