Development of a handy criticality analysis tool for fuel debris

Tada, Kenichi   

The decommissioning of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident is one of the most important issues in Japan. The criticality safety of fuel debris is imperative to prevent exposure of workers. The investigating criticality monitoring system cannot detect the criticality of fuel debris quickly. The estimation of criticality of fuel debris is required for the fuel debris retrieval. Though the expert knowledge of reactor physics is necessary to estimate the criticality of fuel debris, many people who make a plan of fuel debris retrieval may not know well about criticality analysis. We developed a handy criticality analysis tool HAND to quickly estimate the criticality of fuel debris without expert knowledge of reactor physics. Since the input data of HAND is so simple and users can intuitively understand the calculation results, this tool is expected to be the effective tool to estimate the criticality of fuel debris.