The "Summary Report of Commercial Reactor Criticality Data for Davis-Besse Unit 1" contains the detailed information necessary to perform commercial reactor criticality (CRC) analyses for the Davis-Besse Unit 1 reactor.

This “Technical Evaluation Report on the Content of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Yucca Mountain License Application; Postclosure Volume: Repository Safety After Permanent Closure” (TER Postclosure Volume) presents information on the NRC staff’s review of DOE’s Safety Analysis Report (SAR), provided on June 3, 2008, as updated by DOE on February 19, 2009. The NRC staff also reviewed information DOE provided in response to NRC staff’s requests for additional information and other information that DOE provided related to the SAR.

The "Summary Report of Commercial Reactor Criticality Data for Catawba Unit 1" contains the detailed information necessary to perform commercial reactor criticality (CRC) analyses for the Catawba Unit 1 reactor.

This report presents the results of computer code benchmark simulations against spent fuel radiochemical assay
measurements from the Kansai Electric Ltd. Takahama-3 reactor published by the Japan Atomic Energy
Research Institute. Takahama-3 is a pressurized-water reactor that operates with a 17 × 17 fuel-assembly design.
Spent fuel samples were obtained from assemblies operated for 2 and 3 cycles and achieved a maximum burnup
of 47 GWd/MTU. Radiochemical analyses were performed on two rods having an initial enrichment of

The report describes the final results of the Phase IIIB Benchmark conducted by the
Expert Group on Burnup Credit Criticality Safety under the auspices of the Nuclear Energy
Agency (NEA) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
The Benchmark was intended to compare the predictability of current computer code and
data library combinations for the atomic number densities of an irradiated BWR fuel
assembly model. The fuel assembly was irradiated under specific power of 25.6 MW/tHM

In January 1999, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)/Office of Civilian Radioactive
Waste Management (OCRWM) submitted the Disposal Criticality Analysis Methodology
Topical Report, Revision 0 (TR) to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for
review and approval. The TR presents an overall approach for consideration of postclosure
disposal criticality of commercial and defense high-level waste to be placed at
the proposed Yucca Mountain site. During the course of the review and interactions

This standard provides criteria for accounting for reactivity effects of fuel irradiation and radioactive decay in criticality safety control of storage, transportation, and disposal of commercial LWR UO2 fuel assemblies.

This standard assumes the fuel and any fixed burnable absorbers are contained in an intact assembly. Additional considerations could be necessary for fuel assemblies that have been disassembled, consolidated, damaged, or reconfigured in any manner.

The Interim Staff Guidance on burnup credit (ISG-8) for spent fuel in storage and transportation casks, issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Spent Fuel Project Office, recommends a burnup measurement for each assembly to confirm the reactor record and compliance with the assembly burnup value used for loading acceptance. This recommendation is intended to prevent unauthorized loading (misloading) of assemblies due to inaccuracies in reactor burnup records and/or improper assembly identification, thereby ensuring that the appropriate subcritical margin is maintained.

Present regulatory practices provide as much burnup credit flexibility as can be currently
expected. Further progress is achievable by incorporating the negative reactivity effects of a
subset of neutron-absorbing fission-product isotopes, and by optimizing the procedural approach
for establishing the burnup characteristics of the spent fuel to be loaded in burnup-creditdesigned
storage and transportation systems. This report describes progress toward developing a

NRC Waste Confidence Rulemaking, Federal Register, 1984, 1990, 1999, and 2008

Pressurized water reactor (PWR) burnup credit validation is
demonstrated using the benchmarks for quantifying fuel reactivity
decrements, published as Benchmarks for Quantifying Fuel Reactivity
Depletion Uncertainty, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)
report 1022909. This demonstration uses the depletion module
TRITON (Transport Rigor Implemented with Time-Dependent
Operation for Neutronic Depletion) available in the SCALE 6.1
(Standardized Computer Analyses for Licensing Evaluations) code

This report is part of a report series designed to document benchmark-quality radiochemical isotopic
assay data against which computer code accuracy can be quantified to establish the uncertainty and bias
associated with the code predictions. The experimental data included in the report series were acquired
from domestic and international programs and include spent fuel samples that cover a large burnup range.
The measurements analyzed in the current report, for which experimental data is publicly available,

In the existing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) regulations governing the spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the time period of compliance was set at 10,000 years. Recently, a Court ordered that EPA and NRC either revise the regulation on this topic to be "based upon and consistent with" recommendations made by a panel of the National Academy of Sciences, who recommended a time period of compliance out to as long as one million years, or seek congressional relief.

This report presents studies to assess reactivity margins and loading curves for pressurized water reactor
(PWR) burnup-credit criticality safety evaluations. The studies are based on a generic high-density 32-
assembly cask and systematically vary individual calculational (depletion and criticality) assumptions to
demonstrate the impact on the predicted effective neutron multiplication factor, keff, and burnup-credit
loading curves. The purpose of this report is to provide a greater understanding of the importance of

Past efforts by the Department of Energy (DOE), the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and others have provided sufficient technical information to enable the NRC to issue regulatory guidance for implementation of pressurized-water reactor (PWR) burnup credit; however, consideration of only the reactivity change due to the major actinides is recommended in the guidance.

The purpose of this calculation report, Range of Applicability and Bias Determination for Postclosure
Criticality of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel, is to validate the computational method used to perform
postclosure criticality calculations. The validation process applies the criticality analysis methodology
approach documented in Section 3.5 of the Disposal Criticality Analysis Methodology Topical Report.1
The application systems for this validation consist of waste packages containing transport, aging, and

This report presents studies performed to support the development of a technically justifiable approach for
addressing the axial-burnup distribution in pressurized-water reactor (PWR) burnup-credit criticality
safety analyses. The effect of the axial-burnup distribution on reactivity and proposed approaches for
addressing the axial-burnup distribution are briefly reviewed. A publicly available database of profiles is
examined in detail to identify profiles that maximize the neutron multiplication factor, keff, assess its