Engineered Materials - std301320000040

DOE-STD-3013-2000

packaged are to be stored at another site, it is recommended that the storing

site be consulted during development of the qualification plan.

Approval of a qualified process will be subject to a technical review of the

qualification plan and testing program by an independent technical review team

appointed by the Albuquerque Operations, Office Nuclear Materials Stewardship

Project Office (see Item 5 of the Foreword). The review must include an

assessment of the plan and testing results by the storing site, if that site is

different than the packaging site.

3. The criterion of 0.5 wt% moisture provides a reasonable balance between the

difficulty of achieving and measuring lower moisture contents and the cost (of both

the container and any ancillary impact on storage facility size) of providing a

container that will withstand the pressure theoretically generated by a higher

moisture content. The correlation of the weight percent criterion with bounding

pressures in storage containers is established in Appendix B (Derivation of Pressure

Equation) and earlier sections of this Appendix.

A.6.1.3

Engineered Materials

1. For purposes of this Standard, fabricated fuel made from metals or sintered oxide

fuels are considered to be stabilized and contained provided that the cladding has

retained its integrity. When there is assurance of cladding integrity, the stabilization

requirements of this Standard are deemed to have been satisfied.

2. Sintered oxide fuel pellets qualified for nuclear fuel are quite pure, have controlled

stoichiometry, and have been formed at more elevated temperatures than specified

in this Standard for stabilization. Consequently, unirradiated pellets need only meet

the moisture criterion in Criterion 6.1.2.3 to be considered "stabilized material" and

to be eligible for packaging. Pellet materials that do not meet that criterion should

be stabilized according to the provisions of Criterion 6.1.2.1 of this Standard.

A.6.1.4

Storage after Stabilization Deferred Packaging

The stabilization step, together with verification of stabilization at that time, provides

certainty that the material was stable at a point in time. A high degree of confidence

that the material is still stable is provided by the observation that the container and

material appear unchanged and the moisture content remains acceptably low.