RSICC CODE PACKAGE CCC-743

 

1.  NAME AND TITLE

CARL 2.3:       Code System to Calculate Radiotoxicity, Activity, Dose and Decay Power Calculations for Spent Fuel.

 

2.  CONTRIBUTORS

            University of Pisa, DIMNP, Pisa, Italy, through the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency Data Bank, Issy-les-Moulineaux, France.

 

3.  CODING LANGUAGE AND COMPUTER

            Matlab® 6.5 or higher on Windows-based PCs (C00743PC58601).

 

4.  NATURE OF PROBLEM SOLVED

            The CARL (Calculation of Radiotoxicities Lifetime) code was originally developed in 2003 for master degree thesis purposes in MathCad environment. It originally calculated the radiotoxic (ingestion) inventory evolution vs. time of a given radionuclide composition. It was developed in order to perform the complex calculations regarding the nuclear spent fuel hazard vs. time. It was supposed, prudently, that water could, in a remote future, corrode casks and transport radionuclides to biosphere. It is well known in fact that the danger coming from nuclear waste over time decreases continuously due to radioactive decay.

Version 2.1 of the code was developed in Matlab® environment and was strongly enhanced. In addition to radiotoxicity, it now also performs activity, dose and decay power calculations and can display the 'Gamma Spectrum', a 3-D plot indicating the activity of gamma rays vs. time and radiation energy. Code input can be given manually (in grams for every nuclide) or by file (MCB-1C, MONTEBURNS-1.0 output file or CARL input file).

Version 2.2 of the code presents additional features including U232 isotope (very useful in thorium fuel cycles calculations) and common nuclear reactor activation materials (Cr51, Mn56, Fe59, Co60, Ni65, Cu64, Zn65, Zn69, Zr95, Mo99, Ta182, W187). It can also display two additional plots indicating equivalent gamma dose rate (in mSv/h) vs. time, both in air and in concrete/rock. Moreover, it displays masses (in grams) in the text output file of all the radionuclides at various logarithmically spaced time points.

Version 2.3 includes some more radionuclides in the database, mainly utilized in nuclear applications different from energy production: Na-24, Ca-45, B-r82, Ba-140, Ir-192, Po-218, Ra-226, Ra-228. Moreover it was designed in order to allow radiation shielding calculations: the gamma spectrum was improved and a new plot indicating the activity x energy vs. time was added (in order to determine the most dangerous gamma emission spectrum over time).

 

5.  METHOD OF SOLUTION

            Bateman equations based; the code solves the problem for every single radionuclide given in input and then sums up the results, displaying a set of plots indicating toxicity, radiotoxicity, activity, gamma spectrum and comparing masses with a given reference composition.

 

6.  RESTRICTIONS OR LIMITATIONS

            The code was tested successfully in MATLAB 6.5, 7.0 and 7.1 environments: exceptionally with 7.0 and 7.1 versions it could jam when are considered single radioisotopes with short half lives compared to the time interval spanned (i.e.: when the calculated quantities become lower than 10E-100).

 

7.  TYPICAL RUNNING TIME

            Run times vary; it is interactive.

 

8.  COMPUTER HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS

            The code runs on personal computers.

 

9.  COMPUTER SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

            CARL 2.3 was implemented under the Windows 2000 operating system. It has also been tested under WINDOWS ME and WINDOWS XP operating systems. It requires Matlab® 6.5 (or higher).

 

10. REFERENCE

V. Romanello, G. Lomonaco, N. Cerullo: “CARL 2.3 Code's User Manual,” University of Pisa, Italy.

 

11. CONTENTS OF CODE PACKAGE

            The package is transmitted on a CD containing the referenced document, source code, sample input and output in a self-extracting file.

 

12. DATE OF ABSTRACT

April 2013.

 

KEYWORDS:  ACTIVATION; BATEMAN EQUATIONS; GAMMA RAY; WASTE MANAGEMENT