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The containment systems of transport casks for spent fuel and high radioactive waste usually include bolted lids with metallic or elastomeric seals.
The mechanical and thermal loadings associated with the routine, normal and accident conditions of transport can have a significant effect on the leak tightness of such containment system.
Scaled cask models are often used for providing the required mechanical and thermal tests series. Leak tests have been conducted on those models.
It is also common practice to use scaled component tests to investigate the influence of deformations or displacements of the lids and the seals on the standard leakage rate as well as to study the temperature and time depending alteration of the seals.
In this paper questions of the transferability of scaled test results to the full size design of the containment system will be discussed.
Numerical approach to determine the correct puncture bar length for the IAEA puncture bar drop test
(2018)
Among other mechanical tests the 1 meter drop onto a steel puncture bar shall be considered for accident safe packages for the transport of radioactive material. According with the IAEA regulations “the bar shall be of solid mild steel of circular section, 15.0 ± 0.5 cm in diameter and 20 cm long, unless a longer bar would cause greater damage…”. The most damaging puncture bar length can be estimated by iterative processes in numerical simulations. On the one hand, a sufficient puncture bar length has to guarantee that shock absorbers or other attachments do not prevent or reduce the local load application to the package, on the other hand, a longer and thus less stiff bar causes a smaller maximum contact force. The contrary influence of increasing puncture bar length and increasing effective drop height shall be taken into account if a shock absorber is directly placed in the target area. The paper presents a numerical approach to identify the bar length that causes maximum damage to the package. Using the example of two typical package masses the sensitivity of contact forces and puncture bar deformations to the initial length are calculated and assessed with regard to the international IAEA package safety requirements.
Acceptable limits for activity release from transport casks for high-level radioactive material specified in the IAEA regulations must be kept by the integrity of cask body and the cask sealing system. 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. One of the fundamental aspects in assessment is the specification of conservative package design leakage rates.
To ensure the required package tightness for both, storage, and transport of the cask before and after storage usually metal seals of the Helicoflex® Type are used. Due to the long-term use the seal behavior is influenced by temperature and time. The mechanical and thermal loadings associated with the routine, normal and accident conditions of transport specified in the regulations can have a significant effect on the leak tightness of the sealing system. Whereas the safety for application of new, non- aged Helicoflex® seals is verified sufficiently, there are still technical data gaps concerning the efficiency of aged Helicoflex® seals.
BAM performed experiments to learn more about the sealing efficiency of aged Helicoflex® seals with Aluminum and Silver outer jackets. The seals were compressed in test-flanges and for artificial ageing the complete flange systems were stored in an oven for several month at a high temperature. During the compression and decompression tests after the aging, load-deformation characteristics of the seals, and leakage rates were measured. With these tests a load situation was simulated, which can occur in the regulatory drop test of the cask: Under high impact loads the bolted lid can lift a little for a short moment, allowing a little movement of the seal, so that the contact area can change before compressing again.
The poster presentation will show details about test conditions and first results.
Packages for the transport of spent nuclear fuel shall meet the International Atomic Energy Agency regulations to ensure safety under different transport conditions. The physical state of spent fuel and the fuel rod cladding as well as the geometric configuration of fuel assemblies are important inputs for the evaluation of package capabilities under these conditions. Generally, the mechanical behavior of high burn-up spent fuel assemblies under transport conditions shall be analyzed with regard to the assumptions which are used in the containment and criticality safety analysis. Considering the complexity of the interactions between the fuel rods as well as between the fuel assemblies, basket, and cask containment, the exact mechanical analysis of such phenomena is nearly impossible. The gaps in Information concerning the material properties of cladding and pellet behavior, especially for the high burn-up fuel, make the analysis more complicated additionally. As a result, enveloping analytical approaches are usually used by BAM within the safety assessment of packages approved for transport of spent nuclear fuel.
To justify the safety margins of such approaches additional analyses are necessary. In this paper, numerical simulations of a spent fuel assembly Segment are presented. The segment modeled represents the part of a generalized BWR fuel assembly between two spacers.
Dynamic and quasi-static finite element calculations are performed to simulate the spent fuel behavior under regulatory defined accident conditions of transport. Beam elements are used for the modeling of the fuel rods representing the compound consisting of claddings and fuel pellets. The dynamic load applied is gathered from an experimental drop test with a spent fuel cask performed at BAM. A hot cell bending test performed at JRC Karlsruhe is the basis for obtaining the material behavior of the fuel rods. The material properties are determined by simulating the test setup of JRC and optimizing the results to fit the experimental load deflection curve. The simulations of the fuel assembly segment are used to get a better understanding about the loads on fuel rods under accident conditions of transport.
The Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) is assessing the mechanical and thermal safety performance of packages for the transport of radioactive materials. Drop testing and numerical calculations are usually part of the safety case concepts, where BAM is performing the regulatory tests at their own test facility site.
Among other mechanical tests the 1 meter drop onto a steel puncture bar shall be considered for accident safe packages. According to the IAEA regulations “the bar shall be of solid mild steel of circular section, 15.0 ± 0.5 cm in diameter and 20 cm long, unless a longer bar would cause greater damage…”.
Particularly with regard to the German transport- and storage cask designs, often made from ductile cast iron, an accurate determination of the puncture bar length to guarantee a load impact covering the worst case scenario can be imperative. If the fracture mechanical proof for the cask material shall be provided by a test, small deviations in the concentrated load applied can be decisive for the question if the cask fails or not.
The most damaging puncture bar length can be estimated by iterative procedure in numerical simulations. On the one hand, a sufficient puncture bar length shall guarantee that shock absorbers or other attachments do not prevent or reduce the local load application to the package, on the other hand, a longer and thus less stiff bar causes a smaller maximum contact force. The contrary influence of increasing puncture bar length and increasing effective drop height shall be taken into account if a shock absorber is directly placed in the target area. The paper presents a numerical approach to identify the bar length that causes maximum damage to the package. Using the example of two typical package masses the sensitivity of contact forces and puncture bar deformations to the initial length are calculated and assessed with regard to the international IAEA package safety requirements.
The mechanical and thermal loadings associated with the routine, normal and accident conditions of transport can have a significant effect on the leak tightness of the containment system of transport casks for spent fuel and high radioactive waste. The containment systems of such transport casks usually include bolted lids with metallic or elastomeric seals.
Scaled cask models are often used for providing the required mechanical and thermal tests series. Leak tests have been conducted on those models.
It is common practice to use scaled component tests to investigate the influence of deformations or displacements of the lids and the seals on the standard leakage rate as well as to study the temperature and time depending alteration of the seals.
In this paper questions and open points of the transferability of scaled test results to the fullscale design of the containment system will be discussed.
Packages for the transport of spent nuclear fuel shall meet the International Atomic Energy Agency regulations to ensure safety under different transport conditions. The physical state of spent fuel and the fuel rod cladding as well as the geometric configuration of fuel assemblies are important inputs for the evaluation of package capabilities under these conditions. In this paper, the mechanical behavior of high burn-up spent fuel assemblies (> approx. 50 GWd/tHM, value averaged over the fuel assembly) under transport conditions is analyzed with regard to the assumptions which are used in the Containment and criticality safety analysis. In view of the complexity of the interactions between the fuel rods as well as between the fuel assemblies, basket, and cask containment, the exact mechanical analysis of such phenomena is nearly impossible. Additionally, the gaps in information concerning the material properties of cladding and pellet behavior, especially for the high burn-up fuel, make the analysis more complicated. Considerations and knowledge gaps for the transport after extended interim storage are issues of growing interest. In this context, practical approaches are discussed based on the experience of BAM within the safety assessment of packages approved for transport of spent nuclear fuel.
For transport package design and operation according to the IAEA regulations, the package shall be securely stowed and its retention system shall be capable to withstand load conditions of routine transport. The supporting IAEA Advisory Material SSG-26 provides information how to do that.
Up to now package designers in different countries use other load factors for the design of attachment points than those specified in the IAEA guidance material. In particular the acceleration values vary between different countries and lead to difficulties during the validation of foreign approval certificates. Therefore the IAEA started a discussion process to review the existing guidance text. An international working group was constituted in 2013. Representatives came from different stakeholders, e.g. transport operators, competent authorities and modal organizations. The discussions concluded especially on the transport conditions which has to be considered for stowage design, including on the one hand the relevance of the load factors used for strength and fatigue analysis and on the other hand the criteria which have to be considered for the attachment points.
The proposed acceleration values will be compared to those measured during recent multi-modal testing by Sandia National Laboratories that measured the acceleration levels experienced by a spent fuel flask during heavy-haul truck, sea, and rail transport.
The ISO standard 10276 is dealing with the load attachment systems of packages as well. This standard considers the trunnion design, manufacturing and operational aspects. The regular standard revision phase started in 2017. An expert group discussed new state-of-the-art technology, different analysis approaches for strength and fatigue analysis and proposed revised text for the ISO standard for international discussion. The finite-element analysis approach incl. appropriate acceptance criteria are described and referenced.
The paper describes relevant tie-down aspects, gives background argumentation relevant to analysis approaches, and tries to support harmonized application of the revised IAEA guidance material and the future revised ISO standard.
The containment systems of transport and storage casks for spent fuel and highlevelradioactive waste usually include bolted lids with metallic or elastomeric seals. The mechanical and thermal loadings associated with the routine, normal and accident conditions of transport can have a significant effect on the leak tightness of such containment system.
Scaled cask models are often used for providing the required mechanical and thermal tests series.Leak tests have been conducted on those models.
It is also common practice to use scaled component tests to investigate the influence of deformations or displacements of the lids and the seals on the standard leakage rate as well as to study the temperature and time depending alteration of the seals.
In this paper questions of the transferability of scaled test results to the full size design of the containment system will be discussed.
For disposal of the German research reactor of the Technical University Munich FRM II a new transport and storage cask design was under approval assessment by the German authorities. The Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM) assessed the mechanical and thermal package safety and performed drop tests. The activity release approaches and subjects of quality assurance and surveillance for manufacturing and operation of the package were assessed by BAM as well.
The cask body is made of ductile cast iron and closed by two bolted lid systems with metal seals. The material of the lids is stainless steel. On each end of the cask a wood-filled impact limiter is installed to reduce impact loads to the cask under drop test conditions. In the cavity of the cask a basket for five spent fuel assemblies is arranged.
For the safety case a combination of experimental testing and analytical/numerical calculations were applied. In total, four drop tests were carried out at the BAM large drop test facility. Two tests were carried out as a full IAEA drop test sequence consisting of a 9m drop test onto an unyielding target and a 1m puncture bar drop test. The other two drop test were performed as single 9m drop tests and completed by additional analyses for considering the effects of an IAEA drop test sequence.
The main objectives of the drop tests were the investigation of the integrity of the package and its safety against release of radioactive material as well as the test of the fastening system of the impact limiters. Furthermore, the acceleration and strain signals measured during the tests were used for the verification of Finite-Element-Analysis (FEA) used for the safety analysis of the package design.
The finite-element models incorporated in the package design safety report include the cask body, the lid system, the inventory and the impact limiters with the fastening system. In this context special attention was paid to the modeling of the encapsulated wood-filled impact limiters.
Additional calculations using the verified numerical models were done by the applicant and assessed by BAM to investigate e.g. the brittle fracture of the cask body made of ductile cask iron within the package design approval procedure.
This paper describes the package design assessment from the view of the competent authority BAM including the applied assessment strategy, the conducted drop tests and the additional calculations by using numerical and analytical methods.