Department of energy spent nuclear fuel transportation system concept for the 21st century

The Department of Energy's (DOE) National Spent Nuclear Fuel Program (NSNFP), located at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL), is chartered with the responsibility for developing a transportation system for the various spent nuclear fuels (SNF) owned by the Department. In accordance with the provisions of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as amended, the system must be licensed under the regulations of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The transportation system components, commonly known as shipping casks, are expected to withstand extreme conditions of accidents while safely maintaining containment of the radioactive contents. The casks, some weighing as much as 150 tons when fully loaded, incorporate radiation shielding and must exhibit prescribed degrees of resistance to impacts due to high speed accidents, drops in various orientations from differing elevations, diesel fuel fire, and immersion under water. The casks are subjected to rigorous licensing proceedings and evaluations to ensure that the design and the methods of fabrication employed will result in a shipping cask that will safely contain the radioactive materials under all credible accident scenarios. To meet these requirements, the NRC has incorporated selected portions of the ANSI, ASME, and ASTM Codes to ensure that the casks will be uniformly built to a set of accepted and recognized standards of proven applicability and reliability. As opposed to SNF owned by commercial entities with small variations among their dimensions, fissile material and fission product concentrations, the DOE owns SNF of virtually every type ever produced for any purpose and, also, SNF that have been subjected to destructive testing or damaged by reactor accidents. Therefore the proposed system, in addition to satisfying the rigorous requirements imposed by the NRC, must also retain sufficient flexibility to accommodate the diversity of sizes, geometric configurations, fissile material and fission product concentrations found among the DOE SNF. This presentation describes the current status and objectives of the development of a system of transportation casks that is in fall compliance with all of the regulatory requirements yet provide sufficient flexibility to accommodate the diverse needs of the DOE while incorporating selected portions of the applicable standards and codes.