Materials Selection Issues for Structural Components of Transportation Casks

Sorenson, K. B.; Salzbrenner, R.; Stephens, J. J.; ,

Materials Selection Issues for Structural Components of Transportation Casks

by K. B. Sorenson, Sandia Natl Lab, United States,
R. Salzbrenner, Sandia Natl Lab, United States,
J. J. Stephens, Jr., Sandia Natl Lab, United States,

Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: High Level Radioactive Waste Management 1990

Abstract:

Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) is evaluating the use of alternate materials (i.e. other than stainless steel) as structural components in nuclear spent fuel transportation casks. This work is sponsored by the U. S. Department of Energy/Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) and Environmental Restoration and Waste Management (EM). Candidate materials which have been proposed for structural use in transport casks include ferritic steels, ductile cast iron (DCI), borated stainless steel, aluminum, titanium, and depleted uranium. Specific programmatic attention has been focused on evaluating the appropriateness of the brittle fracture criteria which has been proposed by the NRC. Ferritic steel will be used as an example of evaluating measured test data with respect to the brittle fracture acceptance criteria suggested by the NRC approach. Parallel effort in the SNL program has been directed towards developing material specifications and supporting code case inquires to the ASME Code. As an illustration of this type of activity, the work on borated stainless steel will be discussed. Another major SNL undertaking is the development of an alternate set of brittle fracture acceptance criteria along with associated material specifications. This area will be discussed by using DCI as the outstanding example.

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