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Drop and fire testing of spent fuel and HLW transport casks at 'BAM test site technical safety'
(2011)
BAM, as a competent German government institute for the mechanical and thermal testing of radioactive material transport and storage containers, operates unique drop and fire test facilities for experimental investigations on the open air BAM Test Site Technical Safety. To be able to perform even drop tests with full scale spent fuel or HAW casks (i.e. the German CASTOR cask designs), BAM constructed in 2004 a large drop test facility capable to handle 200 ton test objects, and to drop them onto a steel plate covered unyielding target with a mass of nearly 2600 ton. Drop test campaigns of the 181 ton GNS CONSTOR V/TC, the 129 ton MHI MSF-69BG and a 1:2 scale model of the GNS CASTOR HAW28M (CASTOR HAW/TB2) have been performed since then. The experimental BAM drop testing activities can be supported also by drop testing of smaller packages (up to 2 ton) in an in-house test facility and by dynamic, guided impact testing of package components and material specimen inside a new drop test machine. In May 2008, a new modern fire test facility was put into operation. The facility provides two test stands fired with liquid propane. Testing in every case has to be completed by computational investigations, where BAM operates appropriate finite element modelling on appropriate computer codes, e.g. ABAQUS, LS-DYNA, ANSYS and other analytical tools.
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.
Mycotoxins are natural contaminants produced by a range of fungal species. Their common occurrence in food and feed poses a threat to the health of humans and animals. This threat is caused either by the direct contamination of agricultural commodities or by a "carry-over" of mycotoxins and their metabolites into animal tissues, milk, and eggs after feeding of contaminated hay or corn. As a consequence of their diverse chemical structures and varying physical properties, mycotoxins exhibit a wide range of biological effects. Individual mycotoxins can be genotoxic, mutagenic, carcinogenic, teratogenic, and oestrogenic. To protect consumer health and to reduce economic losses, surveillance and control of mycotoxins in food and feed has become a major objective for producers, regulatory authorities and researchers worldwide. However, the variety of chemical structures makes it impossible to use one single technique for mycotoxin analysis. Hence, a vast number of analytical methods has been developed and validated. The heterogeneity of food matrices combined with the demand for a fast, simultaneous and accurate determination of multiple mycotoxins creates enormous challenges for routine analysis. The most crucial issues will be discussed in this review. These are (1) the collection of representative samples, (2) the performance of classical and emerging analytical methods based on chromatographic or immunochemical techniques, (3) the validation of official methods for enforcement, and (4) the limitations and future prospects of the current methods.
Hydrogen is an attractive energy carrier that requires high effort for safe storage. Forensuring safety, they must undergo a challenging approval process. Relevant standardsand regulations for composite cylinders used for the transport of hydrogen and for its on-board storage are currently based on deterministic (e.g. ISO 11119-3) or semi-probabilistic(UN GTR No. 13) criteria. This paper analysis the properties of such methods withrespect to the evaluation of load cycle strength. Their characteristics are compared withthe probabilistic approach of the BAM. Based on Monte-Carlo simulations, the availabledesign range (mean value and scatter of strength criteria) of current concepts was exem-plarily estimated. The aspect of small sample sizes is analysed and discussed with respectto the evaluation procedures.
Hydrogen is an attractive energy carrier that requires high effort for safe storage. For ensuring safety, they must undergo a challenging approval process. Relevant standards and regulations for composite cylinders used for the transport of hydrogen and for its onboard storage are currently based on deterministic (e.g. ISO 11119-3) or semi-probabilistic (UN GTR No. 13) criteria. This paper analysis the properties of such methods with respect to the evaluation of load cycle strength. Their characteristics are compared with the probabilistic approach of the BAM. Based on Monte-Carlo simulations, the available design range (mean value and scatter of strength criteria) of current concepts was exemplarily estimated. The aspect of small sample sizes is analysed and discussed with respect to the evaluation procedures.
Developers interested in high pressure storage of hydrogen for mobile use increasingly rely on composite cylinders for onboard storage or transport of dangerous goods. Thus, composite materials and systems deserve special consideration. History gives interesting background information important to the understanding of the current situation as to regulations, codes and standards.
Based on this review, origins of different regulations for the storage of hydrogen as dangerous good and as propellant for vehicles will be examined. Both categories started out using steel and sometimes aluminium as cylinder material. With composite materials becoming more common, a new problem emerged: vital input for regulations on composite pressure systems was initially derived from decades of experience with steel cylinders. As a result, both regulatory fields suffer somewhat from this common basis. Only recent developments regarding requirements for composite cylinders have begun to go more and more separate ways. Thus these differences lead to some shortcomings in regulation with respect to composite storage systems.
In principle, in spite of separate development, these deficits are in both applications very much the same: there are uncertainties in the prediction of safe service life, in retesting procedures of composite cylinders and in their intervals. Hence, different aspects of uncertainties and relevant approaches to solutions will be explained.
Gas cylinders made from composite materials receive growing popularity in applications where light weight is of advantage. At the same time manufacturers are interested in cutting cost and weight through material reduction for better acceptance of a product, e.g. H2-vehicles. This requires a better understanding of safety relevant properties.
The safety determination of current standards is mainly based on the minimum burst pressure of a few specimens. Various research projects were conducted aiming at reducing minimum burst pressure requirements without compromising safety. No satisfying results were found. While looking at reliability aspects it could be concluded, that the minimum burst pressure of unused specimens is not a satisfying criterion for safety during service life.
This paper introduces first ideas for a method to determine one aspect of reliability of composite gas cylinders, employing probabilistic analysis of burst pressures of a sample of specimens. This can create potential for saving material cost while granting a higher safety level than the current method. Additionally, degradation over service time can be assessed.
The crush test for light weight and low density type B packages was introduced for the first time into the 1985 edition of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) transport safety regulations. In the early 1970s, the need for an additional mechanical test besides or instead of the well known 9 m drop test was deliberated. Various authors and test facilities, including BAM and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), were able to prove that the level of safety provided by IAEA drop and puncture tests in the regulations did not protect against dynamic crush forces to smaller packages. As early as the third PATRAM symposium held in 1971 (Richland, WA, USA), Robert F. Barker asked for '... a more strenuous crushing test for protecting small, light weight packages ...' BAM developed from research activities a proposal as to which types of packages should be subject to crush tests and how the crush tests should be performed, which was presented at the 5th PATRAM symposium held in 1978 (Las Vegas, NV, USA). At the IAEA, the possible need for a crush test was first mentioned in 1977. The subject for a discussion, besides the principal need for this test, was also the development of suitable set of crush test boundary conditions. It took more than four years of discussion until a dynamic crush test similar to today's test was recommended by experts to the IAEA regulatory revision panel. Finally, after a rigorous evaluation process in which also the boundary conditions were determined, the crush test was proposed to be incorporated into the IAEA regulations. BAM and SNL participated in the crush test development and implementation process right from the beginning in the early 1970s until its implementation in the IAEA regulations in 1985. Today, BAM performs crush test procedures according to para. 727(c) of TS-R-1, which have not been changed since their first implementation. Crush tests performed in 2002 at BAM will be discussed. These approval design tests were performed on birdcage pellet transport containers under normal and accident conditions according to the IAEA regulations.
Admissible limits for activity release from type B(U) packages for spent fuel transport specified in the International Atomic Energy Agency regulations (10-6 A2 h-1 for normal conditions of transport and A2 per week for accidental conditions of transport) have to be kept by an appropriate function of the cask body and its sealing system. Direct measurements of activity release from the transport casks are not feasible. Therefore, the most common method for the specification of leak tightness is to relate the admissible limits of activity release to equivalent standardised leakage rates. Applicable procedure and calculation methods are summarised in the International Standard ISO 12807 and the US standard ANSI N14·5. BAM as the German competent authority for mechanical, thermal and containment assessment of packages liable for approval verifies the activity release compliance with the regulatory limits. Two fundamental aspects in the assessment are the specification of conservative design leakage rates for normal and accidental conditions of transport and the determination of release fractions of radioactive gases, volatiles and particles from spent fuel rods. Design leakage rates identify the efficiency limits of the sealing system under normal and accidental transport conditions and are deduced from tests with real casks, cask models or components. The releasable radioactive content is primarily determined by the fraction of rods developing cladding breaches and the release fractions of radionuclides due to cladding breaches. The influence of higher burn-ups on the failure probability of the rods and on the release fractions are important questions. This paper gives an overview about methodology of activity release calculation and correlated boundary conditions for assessment.