Criticality safety of fuel pins in a post irradiation examination cell

This paper discusses the criticality safety of mixed carbide (70 PuC: 30 UC) fast reactor fuel pins inside the hot cells of a post irradiation examination facility. The criticality calculations are done as a part of the licensing requirements. The present calculations pertain to a situation where 183 fuel pins from three fuel sub-assemblies are inadvertently present at a time in one of the hot cells. In this study, apart from the normal operating condition of the hot cell, two scenarios are considered. One is an accidental situation in which the cell is flooded with water. The other is a hypothetical roof collapse resulting in the fuel pins being embedded in concrete. The calculations are done using Monte Carlo code KENO Va.