Other Challenges2

The identified changes in power, nuclear characteristics, and fuel weight will affect the HFIR facility infrastructure. At present, it appears that ORNL will need to: (1) increase the capacity of the cooling tower and the cold source helium refrigerator; (2) modify the reactor instrumentation and control systems to manage the increased heat load; (3) modify the fuel handling tools; and (4) reevaluate the core structural and seismic analyses. In addition, the spent fuel systems will need to be reevaluated, including the design analyses for the pool storage and fuel shipping containers.