Estimation of heat load for the vitrified waste product

The radioactivity present in vitrified waste product (VWP) comprises of fission products, actinides and their daughters, and activation products. The various sources of radioactivity are the fission product nuclides, actinides and their daughters and clad activation products. We have focused on the decay heat that continues to be generated even after the fission process has been terminated. Hence, heat removal operation needs to be maintained even after termination of the fission process, on the basis of reliable decay-heat calculations. Decay heat varies as a function of cooling time, and can be determined in theory from known nuclear data, based on computations of the inventory of the resulting radionuclides created during the fission process and after reactor shutdown, and their radioactive decay characteristics. This paper estimates the heat produced in the VWP generated from the PHWR fuel. Activation of the impurities present in the fuel during irradiation has not been considered. The method in brief involves estimation of the mass of the fuel and zircaloy material in the fuel batch; estimation of the composition simulation of the irradiation process in a reactor using a physics code; estimation of the residual activity at the time of reprocessing and estimation of the heat produced in the Vitrified Waste Product