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Thanks to its good strength/mass ratio, a glass fibre reinforced plastic (GFRP) composite is a common material widely used in aviation, power production, automotive and other industries. In its turn, active infrared (IR) nondestructive testing (NDT) is a common inspection technique for detecting and characterizing structural defects in GFRP. Materials to be tested are typically subjected to optical heating which is supposed to occur on the material surface. However, GFRP composite is semitransparent for optical radiation of both visual and IR spectral bands. Correspondingly, the inspection process represents a certain combination of both optical and thermal phenomena. Therefore, the known characterization algorithms based on pure heat diffusion cannot be applied to semi-transparent materials. In this study, the phenomenon of GFRP semi-transparency has been investigated numerically and experimentally in application to thermal NDT. Both Xenon flash tubes and a laser have been used for thermal stimulation of opaque and semi-transparent test objects. It has been shown that the Penetration of optical heating radiation into composite reduces detectability of shallower defects, and the signal-to-noise ratio can be enhanced by applying the technique of thermographic signal reconstruction (TSR). In the inspection of the semi-transparent GFRP composite, the most efficient has been the laser heating followed by the TSR data processing. The perspectives of defect characterization of semi-transparent materials by using laser heating are discussed. A neural network has been used as a candidate tool for evaluating defect depth in composite materials, but its training should be performed in identical with testing conditions.
Packages for the transport of radioactive material shall withstand severe accidents. Therefore, the IAEA Regulations define different test scenarios to cover severe hypothetical accident conditions. One of these tests defined in detail is the thermal test, mainly consisting of a 30 minute fully engulfing 800 °C pool fire or an equally severe fire test. The heat fluxes into the package are of significant importance and depend substantially on the fire characteristics and the surface temperature of the package.
In order to investigate the heat fluxes over a wide range of surface temperatures during a propane gas fire test and to get information about local fire impact a fire reference package, representing the outer geometry of a specific type of transport cask for radioactive waste, was designed. A closed steel sheet cylinder with a wall thickness of 10 mm was chosen as fire reference package. The cylinder was filled with refractory insulation material and instrumented with thermocouples distributed all over the cylinder. The local steel sheet temperatures measured allow the determination of local as well as global heat fluxes as a function of time and surface temperature.
With this fire reference package three open-air propane gas fire tests were performed at BAM’s open air fire test stand. The flame exposure time period was changed for the different fire tests. Furthermore, the wind conditions changed between and during the tests. Test stand parameters like wind shield location and propane gas volume flow were chosen constant for the three tests. The test results were used to determine the changes of heat flux into the fire reference package in relation to the package surface temperature. This data also allows the calculation of local characteristics of the propane gas fire as there are the flame temperature, the fire convection coefficient and the radiation exchange coefficient in a first approach. The recently conducted tests provide an initial picture of local fire characteristics of the propane gas fire test facility. The test shows that the propane gas fire covers the IAEA-fire over a wide range of surface temperatures with the chosen test stand parameters.
In order to investigate the heat fluxes over a wide range of surface temperatures during a propane gas fire test and to get information about local fire impact a fire reference package, representing the outer geometry of a specific type of transport cask for radioactive waste, was designed. A closed steel sheet cylinder with a wall thickness of 10 mm was chosen as fire reference package. The cylinder was filled with refractory insulation material and instrumented with thermocouples distributed all over the cylinder. The local steel sheet temperatures measured allow the determination of local as well as global heat fluxes as a function of time and surface temperature.
With this fire reference package three open-air propane gas fire tests were performed at BAM’s open air fire test stand. The flame exposure time period was changed for the different fire tests. Furthermore, the wind conditions changed between and during the tests. Test stand parameters like wind shield location and propane gas volume flow were chosen constant for the three tests. The test results were used to determine the changes of heat flux into the fire reference package in relation to the package surface temperature. This data also allows the calculation of local characteristics of the propane gas fire as there are the flame temperature, the fire convection coefficient and the radiation exchange coefficient in a first approach. The recently conducted tests provide an initial picture of local fire characteristics of the propane gas fire test facility. The test shows that the propane gas fire covers the IAEA-fire over a wide range of surface temperatures with the chosen test stand parameters.
Accident safe packages for the transport of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste shall fulfil international IAEA safety requirements. Compliance is shown by consecutive mechanical and thermal testing. Additional numerical analysis are usually part of the safety evaluation. For damage protection some package designs are equipped with wood filled impact limiters encapsulated by steel sheets. The safety of these packages is established in compliance with IAEA regulations. Cumulative mechanical and fire tests are conducted to achieve safety standards and to prevent loss of containment. Mechanical reliability is proven by drop tests. Drop testing might cause significant damage of the impact limiter steel sheets and might enable sufficient oxygen supply to the impact limiter during the fire test to ignite the wood filling. The boundary conditions of the fire test are precisely described in the IAEA regulatory. During the test the impact limiter will be subjected to a 30 minute enduring fire phase. Subsequent to the fire phase any burning of the specimen has to extinguish naturally and no artificial cooling is allowed. At BAM a large-scale fire test with a real size impact limiter and a wood volume of about 3m³ was conducted to investigate the burning behaviour of wood filled impact limiters in steel sheet encapsulation. The impact limiter was equipped with extensive temperature monitoring equipment. Until today burning of such impact limiters is not sufficiently considered in transport package design and more investigation is necessary to explore the consequences of the impacting fire. The objective of the large scale test was to find out whether a self-sustaining smouldering or even a flaming fire inside the impact limiter was initiated and what impact on the cask is resulting. The amount of energy, transferred from the impact limiter into the cask is of particular importance for the safety of heavy weight packages. With the intention of heat flux quantification a new approach was made and a test bench was designed. A first computational simulation of transport package temperatures taking into account the results of the conducted fire test was performed.
Accident safe packages for the transport of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste shall fulfil international IAEA safety requirements. Compliance is shown by consecutive mechanical and thermal testing. Additional numerical analysis are usually part of the safety evaluation. For damage protection some package designs are equipped with wood filled impact limiters encapsulated by steel sheets. The safety of these packages is established in compliance with IAEA regulations. Cumulative mechanical and fire tests are conducted to achieve safety standards and to prevent loss of containment. Mechanical reliability is proven by drop tests. Drop testing might cause significant damage of the impact limiter steel sheets and might enable sufficient oxygen supply to the impact limiter during the fire test to ignite the wood filling. The boundary conditions of the fire test are precisely described in the IAEA regulatory. During the test the impact limiter will be subjected to a 30 minute enduring fire phase. Subsequent to the fire phase any burning of the specimen has to extinguish naturally and no artificial cooling is allowed. At BAM a large-scale fire test with a real size impact limiter and a wood volume of about 3m3 was conducted to investigate the burning behaviour of wood filled impact limiters in steel sheet encapsulation. The impact limiter was equipped with extensive temperature monitoring equipment. Until today burning of such impact limiters is not sufficiently considered in transport package design and more investigation is necessary to explore the consequences of the impacting fire. The objective of the large scale test was to find out whether a self-sustaining smouldering or even a flaming fire inside the impact limiter was initiated and what impact on the cask is resulting. The amount of energy, transferred from the impact limiter into the cask is of particular importance for the safety of heavy weight packages. With the intention of heat flux quantification a new approach was made and a test bench was designed.
Fire testing is an essential part of the hypothetical, cumulative mechanical and thermal accident test conditions that shall guarantee package safety in severe accidents. Not only for radioactive material transport packages but also for other containments of dangerous goods, international standards require specific thermal load specifications. Following the guideline Safety in technology and chemistry' BAM, as a scientific and technical German federal government institute, operates a 12 km² large open air test facility for experimental investigations of dangerous goods and their containments. On an area beside the well-known 200-ton drop test facility, BAM has put into operation a new fire test facility. This facility provides two fire test stands that utilise liquid propane as fuel from a central, earth-covered 60m³ LPG storage tank. From that storage the propane is pumped via pipelines to the test stands where the gas is released from nozzles, and ignited by ignition burners. The fire exposure test facility areas are 12×8 m. Fire test facility B (with gas release nozzles submerged in a water pool) is designed for fire testing of containers that may burst during the test. Fire test facility A (with ring burner systems) is designed for heavy test objects up to 200 tons, e.g. for full-scale spent fuel casks. This paper presents a detailed description of the facility, insight into first tests performed, and results of calorimeter fire tests, using containers of various sizes, to verify the absorbed heat fluxes, demonstrating that regulatory fire test conditions are met, and that the propane fire is equivalent to a kerosene or heating oil pool fire.