Aluminum honeycomb impact limiter study

Design requirements for a cask transporting radioactive materials must include the condition of the 30-foot free fall of the cask onto an unyielding surface. To reduce the deceleration loads to a tolerable level for all the components of the cask, a component (impact limiter) is designed to absorb the kinetic energy. The material, shape, and method of attachment of the impact limiter to the cask body comprises the design of the impact limiter. The impact limiter material of interest is honeycomb aluminum, and the particular design examined was for the NAC Legal Weight Truck cask (NAC-LWT) for spent fuel from light water reactors. The NAC-LWT has a design weight of 52,000 pounds, and it has a nominal length of 200 inches. The report describes the numerical calculations embodied in the FADE program to determine the accelerations and crush strain resulting from an arbitrary height and angle of orientation. Since the program serves as a design tool, static tests are performed to assess the effect of the shell containing the honeycomb aluminum. The static tests and their results are contained in the study. The static tests are used to demonstrate for licensing purposes the level of accelerations imposed on the caskmore » during a 30-foot drop. 3 refs., 41 figs., 15 tabs.« less