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Packages for the transport of radioactive material are often equipped with impact limiters consisting of wood, encapsulated by steel sheets. These impact limiters shall ensure that transport casks meet the IAEA safety requirements. After damage caused by the mechanical tests the package has to withstand a severe fire scenario. It is required that the mechanical tests have to produce maximum damage, taking into account the thermal test. Furthermore, any damage, which would give rise to increased radiation or loss of containment or affect the confinement system after the thermal test, should be considered. Concerning the thermal test, the IAEA safety requirements state that during and following the fire test, the specimen shall not be artificially cooled and any combustion of materials of the package shall be permitted to proceed naturally. Different works from the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) and BAM show that additional energy supply from a pre-damaged impact limiter to the cask could occur caused by smoldering of the wood. This effect should be considered within the safety assessment of the package. A heat wave from the fire could overlap with the additional energy from the impact limiter in the sealing system. In 2015 BAM conducted small scale
fire tests with wood filled metal drums showing continuing combustion processes during the cooling down phase. As not much is known about smoldering processes in wood filled impact limiters, it is highly complex to define pre-damage of impact limiters, which are conservative, regarding the most damaging energy flow from the impact limiter to the containment system in dependence of time. More research has to be done to develop models to examine the effects of smoldering impact limiters on the containment of packages for the assessment. The process of smoldering is described with regard to the requirements in the thermal safety assessment. Parameters influencing the smoldering process are identified. BAM operates test facilities to examine the issue of mechanical damage, combustion and heat transfer of packages for transport of radioactive material. A thermal test will take place with a wood filled test specimen with a diameter of about 2.3 meters. The aim is to understand the phenomena of smoldering under the consideration of relevant regulatory boundary conditions.
Packages for the transport of radioactive material are often equipped with impact limiters consisting of wood, encapsulated by steel sheets. These impact limiters shall ensure that the transport casks meet the mechanical and thermal IAEA regulatory test requirements. According to the accident conditions of transport it is mandatory to expose the specimens to a cumulative effect by mechanical and thermal impacts. The mechanical tests consist of a free drop from 9 m onto a flat unyielding target and a 1 m drop onto a puncture bar. After damage caused by mechanical test sequences the package has to withstand a severe fire scenario. Corresponding to the IAEA advisory material it is required that the impact attitudes for the 9 m drop test and for the puncture test have to be such as to produce maximum damage, taking into account the thermal test. Moreover, any damage, which would give rise to increased radiation or loss of containment or affect the confinement system after the thermal test, should be considered. During and following the thermal test, the specimen shall not be artificially cooled and any combustion of materials of the package shall be permitted to proceed naturally. Different works from the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) and BAM show that additional energy supply from a pre-damaged impact limiter to the cask could occur. This effect should be considered within the safety assessment of the containment. Thermal effects at the closure system of the cask, which might result in an elevated activity release, have to be excluded. BAM conducted small scale tests with wood filled metal buckets showing continuing combustion processes during the cooling down phase. These test results are presented. As not much is known about smouldering processes in wood filled impact limiters, it is highly complex to define pre-damage of impact limiters, which are conservative, regarding the maximum damaging energy flow from the impact limiter to the containment system. More research has to be done to develop models to examine the effects of smouldering impact limiters on the containment of packages for the transport of radioactive material. Aspects of assessment and its difficulties are shown. BAM as a competent authority for the approval of transport casks for radioactive material in Germany operates the test facilities to examine the issue of mechanical damage, combustion and heat transfer for such kind of package systems. For this purpose the knowledge from real drop tests with casks of a mass partly over 100 tons was transferred to a test application. A thermal test will take place with a wood filled test specimen with a diameter of about 2.3 meters. The aim is to understand the phenomena of smouldering under the consideration of relevant regulatory boundary conditions. The process of smouldering is described with regard to the requirements in the thermal assessment of safety of packages for the transport of radioactive material. Requirements concerning the pre-damage of packages for the maximum damage of impact limiters are discussed. Parameters influencing the smouldering process are identified.
Heavy-weight packages for the safe transport of radioactive material are equippedwith impact limiters often built ofwood-filled steel sheet structures to fulfil the requirements of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regulations. The requirements definemechanical tests followed by a thermal test, including criteria ensuring the package design’s ability to withstand severe accidents and provide a high level of technical safety.
Impact limiters are a package component mainly designed for the packages to withstand severe mechanical accident scenarios. In drop tests the impact limiters absorb the kinetic energy during impact of the package. The package must then - with its pre-damaged impact limiters - endure a thermal test defined precisely in the IAEA regulations as a 30-min fully engulfing 800 °C-fire. After the fire, a wood-filled impact limiter may continue to release thermal energy from an ongoing combustion process, defining relevant package temperatures. The energy flow from a possible burning impact limiter to the package is important for the safety evaluation of transport packages. To investigate the combustion behaviour of densely packed layers of spruce wood, encapsulated in pre-damaged cylindrical metal enclosures, a test set-up has been realised. The set-up consists of a combustion chamber to perform these tests under defined boundary conditions. The temperature development of the test specimens will be observed fromoutside with a thermographic imager, with HD-Cameras, and the mass loss will be measured during the entire test. Airflow conditions in the combustion chamber are analysed using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) calculations in OpenFOAM. The planned combustion test setup is described.
Packages for the transport of radioactive material are often equipped with impact limiters consisting of wood, encapsulated by steel sheets. These impact limiters shall ensure the transport cask meets the mechanical and thermal IAEA regulatory test requirements. After damage caused by the mechanical tests the package has to withstand a severe fire scenario. According to the regulations during and following the thermal test, the specimen shall not be artificially cooled and any combustion of materials of the package shall be permitted to proceed naturally.
Corresponding to results of the French institute IRSN combustion and smouldering of wood inside the impact limiter occurred during and after the fire test. An additional energy supply from a pre-damaged impact limiter to the cask could be the consequence for the safety assessment of the containment.
BAM started a first test phase to examine the issue of combustion for such kind of package components. The goal was to understand the phenomena under the consideration of relevant regulatory boundary conditions. Several metal buckets were filled with wood and equipped with thermocouples. The test specimens have been prepared with different damage arrangements to take the influence of the mechanical tests into account. This paper shows the experimental setup and the conduction of the tests. The first test shows that pre-damaged metal encapsulations can lead to smouldering of the wood and with this to a supplement energy release after the end of the 30 minute fire. BAM is in the preparation process for a second test phase. A thermal test will take place with a wood filled test specimen weighing about 2Mg.
Packages for the transport of radioactive material are often equipped with impact limiters consisting of wood, encapsulated by Steel sheets. These impact limiters shall ensure the transport cask meets the IAEA safety requirements. After damage caused by the mechanical tests the package has to withstand a severe fire scenario. According to the regulations during and following the fire test, the specimen shall not be artificially cooled and any combustion of materials of the package shall be permitted to proceed naturally.
Due to results of the French institute IRSN it was shown that after the fire test an additional energy supply from a pre-damaged impact limiter should be taken into account. The combustion or smouldering of wood was of interest.
BAM started a first test phase to examine the issue of combustion for such kind of package components. The goal was to understand the phenomena under the consideration of relevant regulatory boundary conditions. Several metal buckets were filled with wood and equipped with thermocouples. The test specimens have been prepared with different damage arrangements to take the influence of the mechanical tests into account. This paper shows the experimental Setup and the conduction of the tests. The first test shows that pre-damaged metal encapsulations can lead to smouldering of the wood and with this to a Supplement energy release after the end of the 30 minute fire. The consequence could be, to consider additional thermal loads of wood filled impact limiters to filled the IAEA regulations, if the conditions of the tests are transferable to the safety analysis of the package design.
Packages for the transport of radioactive material shall meet the mechanical and thermal test requirements of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regulations for package design approval. Besides mechanical testing, the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) performs thermal tests in accordance with the IAEA regulations. The thermal test includes a 30-minute 800°C fully engulfing fire.
BAM continuously performs various thermal experiments for the investigation of the thermal response of packages with respect to the IAEA fire. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the already performed, ongoing and future physical tests and experiments of BAM in the field of thermal investigations. These research and development works shall support our competencies for the authority package design assessment.
BAM operates a propane gas fire test facility. To be able to carry out comparative investigations and validity between the propane fire and the in detail prescribed pool fire test in the regulations, BAM carries out various calorimetric tests and investigates the boundary conditions of the fire with the help of fire reference packages. At the same time, we are conducting various fire scenarios with wood-filled impact limiters. Large-scale fire tests of impact limiters are carried out on a full scale as well as on a small scale. Influencing variables are investigated in particular by means of geometric changes and the consideration of artificial damages, in particular holes. In addition to propane fire as a heat source, thermal scenarios are also investigated with hydrogen as heat source and an infrared radiator system to ignite test specimens. For these numerous test arrangements, the transferability to existing and newly developed transport package designs is essential and fruitful within the review of design approvals, especially for Dual Purpose casks with a long-lasting operation time.
Evaluation of Heat Fluxes in Fire Reference Test Conducted in BAM Propane Gas Fire Test Facility
(2024)
Packages for the transport of intermediate- and high-level radioactive waste are designed to withstand severe accidents. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has established specific mechanical and thermal tests. Packages for the transport of radioactive material must withstand these tests to comply with the Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Materials IAEA [IAEA (2018)]. A fire reference package was developed with the primary objective to demonstrate that the fire meets the regulatory requirements. Another aim is to characterise the boundary conditions of the actual fire as input parameters for thermo-mechanical simulations. A simple method to characterise the boundary conditions of a real steady state fire with a fire reference package is presented. The thermal test mainly consists of a 30 minute fully engulfing 800°C pool fire or an equally severe fire, such as a propane gas fire. The fire reference tests are performed prior to the actual fire test with the real package. The heat fluxes into the package depend substantially on the fire characteristics and the surface temperature of the package. To investigate local and overall heat fluxes over a wide range of surface temperatures in this test facility a fire reference package was designed for repeated use. The fire reference package presented in this paper represents the outer geometry of a small transport container for radioactive material and is used as a device in civil engineering. It is designed as a closed steel sheet cylinder with a wall thickness of 10 mm, a length of 182 mm and a diameter of 102 mm. The package was instrumented with thermocouples and filled with heat resistant insulation material. Open-air fire tests were performed in a BAM propane gas fire test facility with the fire reference package. The measured temperatures are used to determine the changes of heat fluxes into the fire reference package in relation to the package surface temperature. The calculated heat fluxes allow its fitting to express the thermal exposure as simple mathematical boundary condition. Therefore, in a first approach, fire properties such as adiabatic surface temperature (AST) as proposed by Wickström et al. (2007), convection coefficient and emissivity are determined mathematically fitting the heat flux development presented in this paper. The evaluated results provide an initial picture of local fire characteristics of the conducted propane gas fire and are a further development of previous works from Feldkamp et al. (2020). The results can be used in thermal and thermo-mechanical models to simulate the load on the real transport package in fire. The test shows that the examined propane gas fire covers the IAEA-fire over a wide range of surface temperatures with the chosen test stand parameters.
Packages for the transport of high-level radioactive material are designed to withstand severe accidents. Hypothetical severe accident conditions are defined in the IAEA Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Materials.
One of these accident conditions 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 depend substantially on the fire characteristics and the Surface temperature of the package.
Fire tests can be performed at BAM on a propane gas fire test facility. In order to investigate the heat fluxes over a wide range of surface temperatures in this test facility a fire reference package was designed for multiple use. The package represented the outer geometry of a specific transport cask for radioactive waste. The fire reference package is a closed steel sheet cylinder with a wall thickness of 10 mm, a length of 1500 mm and a diameter of 1050 mm. The package was instrumented with thermocouples and filled with heat resistant insulation material.
Three open-air fire tests were performed in the BAM propane gas fire test facility. The flames exposure time period varied slightly for the fire tests. The wind direction as well as the wind Speed were measured and changed between and during the tests. Test stand parameters such as wind shield location and propane gas volume flow were chosen constant for the three tests. The locally measured fire reference package steel sheet temperatures were used for the calculation of heat fluxes as function of time and surface temperature. The measured temperatures allowed further calculations. In a first approach effective fire characteristics of the propane gas fire, including the flame temperature, the fire convection coefficient and a Radiation exchange coefficient mathematically describing the determined average heat flux over the surface temperature were calculated.