Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology

A spent fuel storage cask is required to prove the safety of a canister under a hypothetical accidental drop condition. A hypothetical accidental drop condition means that a canister is assumed to be a free drop on to a pad of the storage cask during loading it into a storage cask. A pad of the storage cask absorbs shock to maintain the structural integrities of a canister under a hypothetical accidental drop condition. In this paper a finite element analysis for various pad structures was carried out to improve the structural integrity of a canister under a hypothetical accidental drop condition. A pad of a storage cask was designed a steel structure with concrete. The 1/4 height of a pad was modified with a structure composed of a steel and a polyurethane foam as a impact limiter. The effect of a shape of a steel structure was studied. The effects of the thickness of a steel structure and the density of a polyurethane foam was also studied.

Keywords

Spent fuel,Dry storage cask,Drop accident condition,Impact limiter,Structural integrity