Japanese perspectives and research on packaging,transport and storage of spent fuel

Abstract

The present paper gives an overview of Japanese experimental studies of dual-purpose metal casks. The studies included: cask drop without impact limiters, drop of a heavy weight onto a cask due to building collapse, burial of a cask in debris from building collapse, tipping over of a cask during an earthquake, long-term containment of metal gaskets and transportability of casks after long-term storage. Most of the studies employed full-scale casks for the experiments.     

Safety Analysis of Casks Under Extreme Impact Conditions

Abstract

The determination of the inherent safety of casks under extreme impact conditions has been of increasing interest since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. For nearly three decades BAM has been investigating cask safety under severe accident conditionslike drop tests from more than 9 m onto different targets and without impact limiters as well as artificially damaged prototype casks. One of the most critical scenarios for a cask is the centric impact of a dynamic load onto the lid-seal system. This can be caused, for example, by a direct aircraft crash (or just its engine) as well as by an impact due to thecollapse of a building, e.g. a nuclear facility storage hall. In this context BAM is developing methods to calculate the deformation of cask components and — with respect to leak-tightness — relative displacements between the metallic seals and their counterparts. This paper presents reflections on modelling of cask structures for finite-element analyses and discusses calculated results of stresses and deformations. Another important aspect is the behaviour of a cask under a lateral impact by aircraft or fragments of a building. Examples of the kinetic reaction (cask acceleration due to the fragments, subsequent contact with neighbouring structures like the ground, buildings or casks) are shown and discussed in correlation to cask stresses which are to be expected.     

Sandia National Ladoratories Cask Drop Test Programme: A Demonstration of Fracture Mechanics Principles for the Prevention of Brittle Fracture

Abstract

Sandia National Laboratories recently completed a cask drop test programme. The aims of the programme were (1) to demonstrate the applicability of a fracture mechanics-based methodology for ensuring cask integrity, and (2) to assess the viability of using a ferritic material for cask containment. The programme consisted of four phases: (i) materials characterisation; (ii) non-destructive examination of the cask; (iii) finite element analyses of the drop events; and (iv) a series of drop tests of a ductile iron cask. The first three phases of the programme provided information for fracture mechanics analyses and predictions for the drop test phase. The drop tests were nominally based upon the lAEA 9 m drop height hypothetical accident scenario, although one drop test was from 18 m. All tests were performed in the side drop orientation at a temperature of ?29°C. A circumferential, mid-axis flaw was introduced into the cask body for each drop test. Flaw depths ranged from 19 to 76 mm. Steel saddles were welded to the side wall of the cask to enhance the stresses imposed upon the cask in the region of the introduced flaw. The programme demonstrated the applicability of a fracture mechanics methodology for predicting the conditions under which brittle fracture may occur and thereby the utility of fracture mechanics design for ensuring cask structural integrity by ensuring an appropriate margin of safety. Positive assessments of ductile iron for cask containment and the quality of the casting process for producing ductile iron casks were made. The results of this programme have provided data to support IAEA efforts to develop brittle fracture acceptance criteria for cask containment.     

Internal cask content collisions during drop test of transport casks for radioactive materials

Abstract

In transport casks for radioactive materials, significantly large axial and radial gaps between cask and internal content are often present because of certain specific geometrical dimensions of the content (e.g. spent fuel elements) or thermal reasons. The possibility of inner relative movement between content and cask will increase if the content is not fixed. During drop testing, these movements can lead to internal cask content collisions, causing significantly high loads on the cask components and the content itself. Especially in vertical drop test orientations onto a lid side of the cask, an internal collision induced by a delayed impact of the content onto the inner side of the lid can cause high stress peaks in the lid and the lid bolts with the risk of component failure as well as impairment of the leak tightness of the closure system. This paper reflects causes and effects of the phenomenon of internal impact on the basis of experimental results obtained from instrumented drop tests with transport casks and on the basis of analytical approaches. Furthermore, the paper concludes the importance of consideration of possible cask content collisions in the safety analysis of transport casks for radioactive materials under accident conditions of transport.     

Heat removal verification tests of full-scale concrete casks under accident conditions

Heat removal verification tests using two kinds of full-scale concrete casks under accident conditions were performed. One is reinforced concrete cask and the other is concrete filled steel cask. From the test results, their safety on heat removal performance under accident conditions was confirmed. Accident conditions for the tests were partial (50%) and complete (100%) blockage of the air inlets. Because the shape of air flow area in the concrete casks are different between two types of the cask, it was found that the change of the temperature distribution and air flow pattern were different for each accident condition.     

Spent fuel transportation risk assessment: cask fire analyses

Abstract

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has recently completed an updated Spent Fuel Transportation Risk Assessment, NUREG-2125. This assessment considered the response of three certified casks to a range of fire accidents in order to determine whether or not they would lose their ability to contain the spent fuel or maintain effective shielding. The casks consisted of a lead shielded rail cask that can be transported either with or without an inner welded canister, an all steel rail cask that is transported with an inner welded canister, and a DU shielded truck cask that is transported with directly loaded fuel. For the two rail casks, large pool fires that were concentric (fully engulfing), offset from the casks by 3 m, and offset from the cask by 18 m were analysed using the computational fluid dynamics CAFE-3D fire modelling code coupled with the finite element analysis PATRAN-Thermal heat transfer code. All of the fires were assumed to last for 3 h. In addition to these extraregulatory fires, the regulatory 30 min fire was analysed using both the regulatory uniform 800°C boundary condition and the more realistic CAFE-3D fire modelling code. For the truck cask, only the engulfing fire case was analysed using a 1 h fire duration. In all of the fire analyses, the seal region of the cask stayed below the failure temperature; therefore, there would be no release of radioactive material. In addition, the temperature of the fuel rods stayed below their burst rupture temperature, providing another barrier to release. For the lead shielded cask, very severe fires cause some of the lead to melt. There is no leak path for this molten lead to exit the shield region, but its expansion during the melting and subsequent contraction due to solidification during cool down results in a reduction in gamma shielding effectiveness.     

Spent Fuel Transport Associated With Other Dangerous Goods in Regular Train Units — Assessment of Hypothetical Explosion Impacts

Abstract

Continental railway transport regulations (RID) do not exclude the transport of spent fuel casks in a regular train unit that also contains wagons with other hazardous materials. In the case of a train accident the release or reactions of those dangerous goods could potentially give significant accidental impacts on to the spent fuel casks. The assessment of fires from inflammable liquids and the explosion impacts from pressurised inflammable gases (like LPG) is well known from other studies which have usually revealed sufficient safety margins to the robust spent fuel cask designs. A new problem to be assessed is the potential impact from a detonation blast wave from explosives transported in the same train unit as a spent fuel cask. BAM is assessing this problem by developing a numerical model to calculate the effect of the dynamic pressure of a external shockwave on the cask construction. The calculation results show that the integrity of a robust monolithic cask with a screwed lid closure system is preserved after the effect of a 21 tonne (equivalent weight of TNT) explosive detonation in the regular transport configuration with a distance of 25 m between the centre of the explosion and the front of the cask.     

Design Assessment for Transport and Storage Casks

Abstract

The design assessment concerning the mechanical behaviour of transport and storage casks for radioactive material to fulfil nuclear safety criteria has to be based on two essential considerations: (1) Effective analysis of the stress–strain state of the cask components under both normal operational and test conditions including hypothetical accident scenarios with suitable accepted methods. (2) Economic estimation of the required properties and the structural state of the cask components with sufficient exactness. In an overview of the codes which are available at GNS/GNB for cask impact strength analyses (ANSYS, ADINA, VDI Codes), procedures and aspects of benchmarking and validation of calculation codes are described. The results of experimental full size cask drop test programs (CASTOR, POLLUX) and corresponding pre-test calculational analyses show the suitability of the codes used. The influence of dynamic effects on the mechanical properties of material (ductile cast iron, wood) has been investigated experimentally. By consideration of these dynamic values in strength analyses of casks at impact a good agreement between experimental and calculational results has been achieved.     

Spent fuel transportation risk assessment: cask impact analyses

Abstract

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has recently completed an updated Spent Fuel Transportation Risk Assessment, NUREG-2125. This assessment considered the response of three certified casks to a range of impact accidents in order to determine whether or not they would lose their ability to contain the spent fuel or maintain effective shielding. The casks consisted of a lead shielded rail cask that can be transported either with or without an inner welded canister, an all-steel rail cask that is transported with an inner welded canister, and a DU shielded truck cask that is transported with directly loaded fuel. Finite element analyses were performed for impacts at speeds of 48, 97, 145 and 193 kilometres per hour into a rigid target. Impacts in end-on, side-on, and CG-over-corner orientations were analysed for each cask and impact speed. Calculations were performed to equate these impacts onto rigid targets with higher speed impacts onto the yielding targets that exist in the real world. These analyses indicated that a cask with an inner welded canister or a truck cask would not release radioactive material in any impact accident and that only very high-speed impacts onto hard rock targets could result in either release of material or significant degradation of shielding for rail casks without an inner canister. Impacts other than those onto flat unyielding targets were also considered. Analyses show that an impact that bypasses the impact limiters on the ends of the casks does not result in seal failure and neither does an impact by a locomotive also between the impact limiters.     

Extended Drop Tests Of DCI Casks with Artificial Flaws Demonstrating the Existing Safety Margins

Abstract

The use of spent fuel shipping and storage casks made of ductile cast iron (DCI) has been common practice for about 15 years when the development of such casks started in Germany where qualified foundries are able to produce these heavy section castings at the high quality level needed for this kind of application. To promote the discussion on safety against brittle failure a lot of research had been carried out in different countries. The two test programmes in Germany on casks with big artificial flaws under severe impact conditions is summarised in this paper. The first test object was a thick walled DCI ‘pipe’ (150 mm wall thickness) with dimensions equivalent to a 1:2.5 scale cask model. It was dropped with a 40 mm deep laser sharpended flaw from heights of up to 9 m onto rails. As a second test object a full scale CASTOR VHLW cask was used. This specimen had a flaw with a depth of 120 mm in a 260 mm thick wall. With increasing drop heights (up to 14 m) and stress intensity factors (up to material fracture toughness) this object was also dropped onto rails. For both cases the measured data (decelerations, crack opening displacement, strains, material properties) are presented. No brittle failure occurred, although in the 14 m drop of the CASTOR VHLW Cask the impact was 6.5 times higher than the impact measured in the mechanical test of the type B package design. The results demonstrate that DCI casks have significantly high safety margins even in the hypothetical case of an impact beyond type B package design requirements.     

Vulnerabilities of legacy fuel casks when evaluated using modern structural analysis tools

Abstract

Cylindrical fuel casks often have impact limiters surrounding the ends of the cask shaft in a typical 'dumbbell' arrangement. The primary purpose of these impact limiters is to absorb energy to reduce loads on the cask structure during impacts associated with a severe accident. Impact limiters are also credited in many packages with protecting closure seals and reducing peak temperatures during fire events. For this credit to be taken in safety analyses, the impact limiter attachment system must be shown to retain the impact limiter following normal conditions of transport (NCT) and hypothetical accident conditions (HAC) impacts. Large casks are often certified by analysis only because of the cost associated with testing. Therefore, some cask impact limiter attachment systems have not been tested in real impacts. A recent structural analysis of the T-3 spent fuel containment cask found problems with the design of the impact limiter attachment system. Assumptions in the original safety analysis for packaging (SARP) concerning the loading in the attachment bolts were found to be inaccurate in certain drop orientations. This paper documents the lessons learned and their applicability to impact limiter attachment system designs.     

Effects and Consequences of Interactions Between Containment Components and Content of Type B Packages During 9 ill Drop Tests

Abstract

Tests with different Type B casks confirm the existence of effects with stress peaks in cask components due to interactions between the cask and its contents. These effects can be caused by a delayed strike of the content onto surrounding cask components which cannot be excluded if the content is movable. Some results of the drop tests with two different Type B casks and with a model designed for the study of this problem are presented in the paper. Results of calculations performed with the ABAQUS computer code and by use of analytical methods to simulate the measured effects are discussed.     

Heat removal verification tests using concrete casks under normal condition

Heat removal tests using two types of full-scale concrete casks were conducted. This paper describes the results under a normal condition of spent fuel storage. In the tests, data on heat removal performance and integrity of cask components were obtained for different storage periods. The change of decay heat of spent fuel was simulated using electric heaters. Reinforced concrete cask (RC cask) and concrete filled steel cask (CFS cask) were the specimen casks. Decay heat at the initial period of storage 60 years of storage, the middle period (20 years of storage), and the final period (40 years of storage) correspond to 22.6 kW, 16 kW and 10 kW, respectively. Quantitative temperature data of the cask components were obtained as compared with their limit temperature. In addition, heat balance data requested for heat removal analyses were obtained.     

Mobile system for the management of fuel assemblies from research reactors

Interim storage in transport and storage casks of the CASTOR type, and later the final storage of these casks are planned for the management of spent fuel assemblies from German research reactors.A mobile transfer unit is used for loading the casks with fuel assemblies on the reactor sites. Key components of the mobile transfer unit are a transfer cask, the recharging lock, and an air-cushion transport system. By means of the air-cushion transport system, the whole equipment, as well as the CASTOR casks, is transported into the reactor building. Thus, handling of the 16 t CASTOR casks is possible even on reactor sites within sufficient crane capacity. A 20 ft container accommodates the mobile transfer unit and all accessories so that the whole equipment can be transported to the reactor sites by truck.     

Safety Margins of Spent Fuel Transport and Storage Casks Considering Aircraft Crash Impacts

Abstract

The safety of spent fuel transport casks in severe accident conditions is always a matter of concern. This paper surveys German missile impact tests that have been carried out in the past to demonstrate that German cask designs for transport and interim storage are safe even under conditions of an aircraft crash impact. A fire test with a cask beside an exploding propane vessel and temperature calculations concerning prolonged fires also show that the casks have reasonably good safety margins in thermal accidents beyond regulatory fire test conditions.     

Finite element analyses and verifying tests for a shock-absorbing effect of a pad in a spent fuel storage cask

A spent fuel storage cask is required to prove the safety of its canister under a hypothetical accidental drop condition which means that the canister is assumed to be free dropped on to a pad of the storage cask during the loading of the canister into a storage cask. In this paper, finite element analyses and verifying tests for a shock-absorbing effect of a pad in a spent fuel dry storage cask were carried out to improve the structural integrity of the canister under a hypothetical accidental drop condition. The pad of the storage cask was originally designed as cylindrical steel structure filled with concrete. The pad was modified by using the structure composed of steel and polyurethane-foam instead of the quarter of the upper concrete as an impact limiter. The effects of the shape and the thickness of the steel structure and the density of the polyurethane-foam which was used in between steel structures were studied. As the optimized pad of a spent fuel dry storage cask, the quarter of the upper concrete was replaced with 12 mm thick circular steel structure and polyurethane-foam whose density was 85 kg/m³. The drop tests of a 1/3 scale model for the canister on to the original pad and the optimized pad were conducted. The effect of the pad structure was evaluated from the drop tests. The optimized pad has a greater shock-absorbing effect than the original pad. In order to verify the analysis results, strains and accelerations in the time domain by the analytical methods were compared with those by a test. The numerical method of simulating the free drop test for a dry storage cask was verified and the numerical results were found to be reliable.     

Safety Concerning Transportation of Spent Fuel

The Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI) has been conducting, under contract with the Science and Technology Agency of Japan, the spent fuel transport cask reliability demonstration test since 1977 to verify the safety and reliability of spent fuel transport casks. The first phase of this test was completed in 1987.

In this demonstration test, both 50 t and 100 t class of casks, designed and manufactured by current techniques, were subjected to tests to verify the integrity and adequacy of the design and manufacturing techniques through observation of behavior of the cask under test conditions. The casks were subjected to tests under normal conditions and under the accident conditions specified in the Japanese regulations and the IAEA regulations, and also to pressure tests, which were performed from the viewpoint of safety in shipping, although by sea, this is not specified in the Japanese regulations.

From the test results, it was confirmed that the 1001 class cask maintained its integrity and characteristics in conformity with regulations even after accident condition tests. It is clear that the design concept and manufacturing procedure employed for this cask is adequate.     

Probabilistic Evaluation of Brittle Failure Design Criterion of DCI Cask

Abstract

As a cask material, ductile cast iron may be susceptible to failure in a brittle manner under certain temperature and load conditions. A design criterion for ductile cast iron casks against brittle failure due to drop tests, has been proposed by Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industries. This design criterion includes a safety factor which presents the extent between the detectable flaw size and the critical flaw size and may be interpreted as ‘uncertainty factor’ as to the uncertainties regarding stress prediction, fracture toughness and so on. In this report, to verify the proposed design criterion, probabilistic evaluation was performed according to a series of drop tests using a full scale cask and material tests, and it is confirmed that the proposed design criterion is applicable and reliable. Furthermore, applicability of the safety design method described in the IAEA-TECDOC-717 published in August 1993 was investigated.     

Safety of transport of radioactive Material: 2004 in retrospect

Abstract

There are basically two main technologies for the intermediate storage of spent nuclear fuel in Europe: dry storage in casks or vaults and wet storage in pools. The advantage of casks is their modularity and hence investment can be phased to suit the planned dates of loading individual casks, pools and vaults usually provide longer term capacity and thus require a greater initial investment for operators. Transnucléaire has developed a range of modular dry cask solutions for customers and more than 100 examples of the TN 24 type cask have been licensed for transport and storage in Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, the United States of America and Japan. This paper compares the requirements for cask licensing in Europe and the USA and shows how two particular BWR cask designs were developed by Transnucléaire. (1) The TN 97 L cask was designed primarily for the European market and the first use is foreseen at the Leibstadt nuclear power station in Switzerland. (2) The TN 68 cask was designed by Transnuclear Inc. and its first use is foreseen at the Philadelphia Electric Company's Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station.