Thermal-hydraulic analysis of the Fort St. Vrain modular vault dry store system

This paper reports on a passive, natural thermosyphon, air-cooled modular vault dry store (MVDS) system that is being constructed for the storage of nuclear spent fuel for the Fort St. Vrain (FSV) Nuclear Power Station. In support of this FSV-MVDS system, thermal-hydraulic design analyses have been performed. The objective of the analyses is to determine flow and temperature distributions within the system and thus to ensure that the maximum fuel element temperatures shall not exceed specified design limit values under various loading and unloading conditions. This paper presents the method of analysis and discusses the resulting thermal-hydraulic characteristics of the MVDS system