Drop impact tester for transient shocks damage evaluation associated with spent nuclear fuel vibration reliability under normal condition of transport

INVENTION REFERENCE NUMBER

201904366

  • Energy and Utilities
  • Materials

Transportation packages for spent nuclear fuel (SNF) must meet safety requirements under normal and accident conditions as specified by federal regulations. During road or rail transportation, SNF will experience unique conditions that could affect the structural integrity of the cladding due to vibrational and impact loading. Lack of SNF inertia-induced dynamic fatigue data, especially for the high burn-up (HBU) SNF systems, has brought significant challenges to quantify the reliability of SNF during transportation with a high degree of confidence. To address this shortcoming, a SNF testing protocol was developed without fuel pellets removal, which has provided significant insight regarding the dynamics of mechanical interactions between pellet and cladding.


Inventors

Jy-An Wang Materials Science and Technology Division


Contact

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