TY - JOUR A1 - Zencker, Uwe A1 - Weber, Mike A1 - Wille, Frank T1 - Finite element mesh design of a cylindrical cask under puncture drop test conditions JF - Packaging, transport, storage & security of radioactive materials (RAMTRANS) N2 - Transport casks for radioactive materials have to withstand the 9 m drop test, 1 m puncture drop test and dynamic crush test with regard to the mechanical requirements according to the IAEA regulations. The safety assessment of the package can be carried out on the basis of experimental investigations with prototypes or models of appropriate scale, calculations, by reference to previous satisfactory safety demonstrations of a sufficiently similar nature or a combination of these methods. Computational methods are increasingly used for the assessment of mechanical test scenarios. However, it must be guaranteed that the calculation methods provide reliable results. Important quality assurance measures at the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing are given concerning the preparation, run and evaluation of a numerical analysis with reference to the appropriate guidelines. Hence, a successful application of the finite element (FE) method requires a suitable mesh. An analysis of the 1 m puncture drop test using successively refined FE meshes was performed to find an acceptable mesh size and to study the mesh convergence using explicit dynamic FE codes. The FE model of the cask structure and the puncture bar is described. At the beginning a coarse mesh was created. Then this mesh was refined in two steps. In each step the size of the elements was bisected. The deformation of the mesh and the stresses were evaluated dependent on the mesh size. Finally, the results were extrapolated to an infinite fine mesh or the continuous body, respectively. The uncertainty of the numerical solution due to the discretisation of the continuous problem is given. A safety factor is discussed to account for the uncertainty. KW - IAEA puncture drop test KW - Cylindrical cask KW - FE mesh refinement KW - Explicit dynamics KW - Numerical analysis PY - 2011 DO - https://doi.org/10.1179/1746510911Y.0000000008 SN - 1746-5095 SN - 1746-5109 SN - 0957-476X VL - 22 IS - 2 SP - 112 EP - 116 PB - Ramtrans Publ. CY - Ashford AN - OPUS4-24016 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -