Authors: Singh, K. P.; Soler, A. I.; Bullard, C. W.

Source: Packaging, Transport, Storage and Security of Radioactive Material, Volume 17, Number 1, 2006 , pp. 41-49(9)

Publisher: Maney Publishing

Abstract:

An impact limiter is an essential part of a transport package for high level waste. The 10CFR71 regulations, which largely mirror IAEA guidelines, require that the maximum deceleration sustained by a transport package undergoing a 9 m drop must be limited to a sufficiently low value to protect the contained fuel as well as the integrity of the containment boundary. The impact limiter serves to enable the package to meet the 10CFR71·73 requirements for accidental drop conditions. The performance demands for an impact limiter are quite onerous when one considers that a 113·4 tonne transport package dropping from 9 m (30 ft) has 90 million lb-inch (1·037 × 10⁶ kg-m) of kinetic energy that must be absorbed by the impact limiter without separating from the package or without permitting excessive deceleration. Because the package may impact upon the target in any of the infinite orientations, the impact limiter must be equally proficient at protecting the package in any disposition of its collision with the target. The approach to designing and qualifying an impact limiter to meet the Part 71 requirements is presented in this paper using the example of the AL-STAR impact limiter in Holtec International's HI-STAR 100 dual purpose cask. The HI-STAR cask is certified by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission under dockets 72-1008 (storage) and 71-9261 (transport). The AL-STAR impact limiter is made of an aluminium honeycomb with prescribed direction dependent crush properties mounted on an extremely stiff carbon steel shell structure and encased in a stainless steel sheathing. The 'drop' testing of scale models of the package in a number of discrete orientations, performed to validate AL-STAR's effectiveness, is described. A theoretical model of the response of the impact limiter, developed using concepts from non-Hertzian contact theory, is benchmarked against the experimental test data. The correlation between the theory and the experiments, having been shown to be excellent, enables the theoretical model to be used to simulate and predict the package's response under any of the innumerable drop scenarios under which the impact limiter must perform with equal efficacy. Inasmuch as the theoretical model is premised on concepts that are independent of a specific impact limiter design, the approach described in this paper may be used to predict the performance of impact limiters for a wide variety of transport packages.

Keywords: SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL; TRANSPORT PACKAGE; 10CFR71; IMPACT LIMITER; HI-STAR

Document Type: Research Article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/174651006X95600

Publication date: 2006-03-01

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• The archive of Packaging, Transport, Storage and Security of Radioactive Material has a previous title, International Journal of Radioactive Materials Transport, going back to 1990. View issues of International Journal of Radioactive Materials Transport.
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