Numerical simulation of 9 meter drop of a transport and storage cask with aluminium impact limiter
(2010)
For the purpose of numerical simulation of 9 meter drop of a transport and storage cask with aluminium impact limiter, an elastic-incremental plastic material model with strain rate hardening acc. to Cowper-Symonds is used for the development of isothermal as well as adiabatic stress-strain relations of aluminium from the compression test at constant ambient temperature. After that, two different simulation strategies are compared. At first, the drop test is calculated fully coupled, i.e. with isothermal stress-strain relations and possible heat generation in the material. Then the drop test is recalculated in a very simplified manner with adiabatic stress-strain relations from the compression test in an isothermal simulation. Both calculation strategies show similar results in the investigated load scenario.
Influence of impact angle and real target properties on drop test results of cubic containers
(2017)
Drop test scenarios with cubic containers without impact limiters at interim storage sites or in a final repository have been investigated by numerical simulations. An ideally flat drop is impossible to conduct as a free fall of a container even under laboratory conditions. Dynamic stresses and strains inside the container structure are sensitive to the impact angle. Even very small impact angles cause remarkable changes in the experimental or numerical results when a flat bottom or wall of a container hits a flat target. For drop tests with transport packages the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regulations define an essentially unyielding target. In contrast, potential accident scenarios for storage containers are derived from site-specific safety analyses or acceptance criteria in Germany. Each interim storage site or repository has a yielding or so-called real target with individual structural and material properties. The real target acts as a kind of impact limiter. A more conservative container design is required if the impact limiting effect of the target is not considered.
The 9 meter drop onto an unyielding target is one of the important mechanical tests within the safety assessment of transport casks for radioactive material. In general, the cask is equipped with impact limiters to reduce the dynamic load on the cask body by absorbing a major part of the kinetic energy. The impact limiters are often made of wood or aluminium. In this study an elastic-plastic material model with volume change was used to describe the stress-strain behaviour of wood found in crush tests. For aluminium, an elastic-incremental plastic material model with Cowper-Symonds parameters for strain rate depending material hardening was used to model the adiabatic stress-strain relations measured at specimens at constant ambient temperature. Hereafter simulations with a sophisticated finite element model were carried out and compared with different drop tests. Four drop tests of a half-scale cask model equipped with wood and aluminium impact limiters with different drop positions were selected to investigate the impact limiter behaviour during a 9 meter drop test. All drop tests were simulated with the same FE mesh but under different boundary and initial conditions.
Dynamic and quasi-static FE calculation of impact from 9 metre drop of spent fuel transport cask
(2009)
The drop from 9 m height onto a rigid target is one of the required proofs of safety for packages of radioactive materials. Direct dynamic finite element method (FEM) calculations and combined two step analytical quasi-static finite element (FE) calculations are both applied for the simulation of a 9 m drop test. This paper gives a comparative example of both approaches for the 9 m side drop simulation of the spent fuel transport cask with wood filled impact limiter. The model for dynamic FEM consists of cask body and impact limiter. Detailed material properties and geometry descriptions from each component of the impact limiter are required. The results (stress fields in the cask body) are obtained directly from the calculation. The combined method provides as intermediate results the force-deformation characteristic of impact limiter. The maximum impact limiter force determined by the law of energy conservation during the drop is then - in a second step - applied on the cask body in a quasi-static FE model in order to calculate the stresses. In this paper, the rigid body deceleration and the maximum stress in the middle of the cask body are used for the comparison between the dynamic FEM and the combined method. Similar maximum rigid body deceleration-time curves were obtained by both methods for the horizontal 9 m free fall. Concerning the stress in the cask body the dynamic FEM results oscillate about values calculated by the combined quasi-static approach. If the combined quasi-static approach is used in the safety assessment of a cask, a suitable factor has to be applied on its results to take into account the additional dynamic effects.
The safety and integrity of casks for radioactive waste in accidental scenarios is analysed by BAM Federal institute tor Materials Research and Testing. An accidental scenario in German interim storage facilities is the drop from a crane during the handling operation. To reduce the mechanical loads to the cask a shock absorbing footing with high energy absorption capability is used in these areas. In order to analyse and evaluate such impact scenarios of casks, numerical simulations are performed. For a comprehensive simulation of an accidental scenario the behaviour of the damping concrete footing has to be taken into account as well and therefor a material model is needed. Material parameters under different loading conditions are the basis for a numerical model. For that reason a government funded research project (Kasparek, 2012) was conducted to characterise damping concrete under quasi-static as well as highly dynamic impact loading conditions. The performed tests include compression tests with and without lateral constraint small-scale and midscale penetration tests with different indenters, and finally a full-scale drop test onto a damping concrete footing.
The shock absorbing material damping concrete is for the foundation in dry interim storage facilities for radioactive waste in Germany. In case of a potential cask drop damping concrete minimizes the mechanical loads to the cask. In course of safety analyzes this accident scenario is considered by numerical simulations using the finite element method. To get reliable results of numerical simulations a suitable material model is needed to take the characteristics of damping concrete into account. Due to the lack of sufficient material knowledge a research project was started to characterize the material’s behavior under different load conditions. This paper presents the test program to analyze the material behavior of damping concrete which is characterized by large volume change and
strain rate hardening dependence. The determined Parameters were used to adapt an existing material model of the FE-code ABAQUS®. This model has to handle the mechanical damage behavior of damping concrete which occurs under compression and shear loads during a potential cask drop. To verify the material model numerical simulations are compared with dynamic penetration tests, which were conducted with specimens assembled similar to the real application of the damping concrete footings. The transferability of the material
model to a real accident scenario was verified by a drop test with a full-scale cask on a damping concrete footing.