STUDY ON THE STRUCTURAL EVALUATION AND OPTIMIZATION OF SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL CASK

Nowadays, nuclear power plays an important role in world electrical energy. Nuclear power plants have inevitably produced radioactive spent nuclear fuel (SNF) during operation. Generally, intermediate storage facilities and at-reactor pools store fresh SNF and remove its residual heat at about five years. However, as time goes by, all of these temporary facilities are near capacity. We are supposed to pay attention to transportation safety, to avoid radioactive material leakage, especially in public domain. Indeed, 9 m drop test is one of the most crucial tests derived on safety regulation which may cause serious structural damage. In this paper, safety performance of a base spent nuclear fuel cask is evaluated. At the same time, the rotation of cask during the drop is considered, because drop inclination which may influence the cushioning effect is random when contacting the ground. Subsequently, the result of safety performance can be utilized to establish comprehensive damage curves. This work is also set up to determine the most dangerous condition. And then optimization is carried out to investigate the effects of some material and design parameters under this condition. Finally, a design approach combining evaluation and optimization is summarized, which can be applied in other nuclear cask systems.