Cask outperforms drop test expectations

30 April 2001


NAC International has completed a quarter-scale 30ft drop test of its Universal Multi-Purpose Canister System (UMS) at Sandia National Laboratories in Alberquerque, New Mexico. The drop test, which was conducted in March, was one of the final tasks towards transport certification by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

NAC was pleased to announce that the dynamic performance (deceleration g-forces) of the system was almost identical to the prediction that the company had previously submitted to the NRC. In fact, it claims that the peak drop test g-forces were less than the design basis loads used in the safety analysis of the cask.

NAC also claims to be the first company to have been able to predict deceleration g-forces before a drop test. The analysis was made possible, it says, by benchmarking and validation of its dynamic analysis code and models to a number of other scale model drops for impact limiter technologies.

“This close correspondence of prediction with actual results is a key advance on the dynamic analysis of highly nonlinear events associated with spent fuel storage and transport,” said Charles W Pennington, group senior vice president of NAC’s Engineering & Design Services.

NAC will provide the NRC with a final analysis of the drop test results, and anticipates receiving its transport licence this summer.
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