Full-scope simulation of a dry storage cask using computational fluid dynamics

A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis of a TN24P cask was performed through a full-scope simulation using FLUENT. In order to establish the analysis methodology while minimizing the computational burden, the sensitivities of various parameters were investigated by constructing a small-scale model. The full-scale CFD predictions of the TN24P cask were compared with the experimental data and COBRA-SFS results. There was good agreement between the FLUENT predictions and the experimental data. FLUENT showed similar temperature predictions to COBRA-SFS, while there were deviations between FLUENT and COBRA-SFS in the velocity predictions. By conducting sensitivity studies for the application uncertainties using a full-scale simulation, it was found that the basket gap size was the most sensitive parameter in the analysis. (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.