An Integrated Facility for Full-Scale Testing of Spent Fuel Rail Transportation Casks

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Package Performance Study requires an integrated cask testing facility with the capacity to conduct impact and fire testing on full-scale rail casks for the transportation of commercial spent nuclear fuel. Preliminary test parameters, as presented in NUREG-1768 [1], proposed the facility should be able to conduct free-fall impacts at speeds up to 90 MPH onto an essentially unyielding target for casks weighing up to 150 tons. Construction of an essentially unyielding target for this type of impact is a momentous task. When spent fuel casks are tested for certification (generally as scale models), the cask impact limiter absorbs most of the impact energy and reduces the contact force between the cask and the target. For high-speed impacts, the impact limiter can no longer absorb all of the impact energy, and the contact force between the cask and the target increases dramatically. This paper will present details of the finite element analyses that were conducted to develop an essentially unyielding target for high-speed, full-scale, 150-ton rail casks. For the fire testing facility, the support structure, fire-pool size, and pool depth should allow long duration fully engulfing fires of a 150-ton cask for durations of at least 1 hour (longer duration fires would require fuel to be added during the burn). Facilities for cask leak tests, dimensional inspections, weld inspections, and radiography are also needed. The facility must have, or be integrated with, a data acquisition system for fully NQA-1 certified piezo-resistive dynamic data acquisition. This paper describes the requirements for this new facility. These requirements are based on proposed test parameters detailed in NUREG-1768. Final design and construction of the test facility will be a result of satisfying program goals, public feedback, and funding and schedule constraints.