Year
2003
Abstract
As part of the Package Performance Study being performed by Sandia National Laboratories for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, accident statistics for heavy trucks on Interstate Highways are being updated from those presented in NUREG/CR-4829 and NUREG/CR-6672. In addition, selected characteristics of representative routes to the Yucca Mountain, NV proposed nuclear waste repository from commercial nuclear power plants distributed around the U.S. have been compiled from available, national databases. The initial task was an examination of available databases describing heavy-truck accidents to evaluate their representation of accidents of interest, content of required parameters, and expected accuracy. Three databases were evaluated in detail: the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Crash File, known historically as the Office of Motor Carriers (OMC) crash file, and the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and General Estimates System (GES) databases, maintained by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The GES database was selected for development of the majority of accident statistics but the FARS database was required for compilations requiring accident location. Queries of the GES and other databases were employed to compile statistics and create probability distributions for parameters required as inputs to risk analyses of spent nuclear fuel transportation. Selected examples of statistics and/or distributions will be presented and significant changes from the previous studies highlighted. Accurate description of these input parameters, together with the crash-response characteristics to be verified by the Package Performance Study, will be essential to establishment of the safety of truck transport of spent nuclear fuel to the Yucca Mountain repository and truck transport of other radioactive materials.