TESTING AND ANALYSIS TO DETERMINE THE SHELL TIDCKNESS REQUIRED TO PREVENT PUNCTURE

Type B radioactive material packages are required to withstand a hypothetical puncture accident of a free fall from a height of one meter onto a 15 em diameter mild steel puncture probe. For many packages it is desirable to have this accident event not result in puncture or tearing of the outer shell of the package. The wall thickness necessary to prevent this has historically been determined by test or the use of empirical relations. This technique generally results in overly conservative designs, but the degree of conservatism is uncertain. The use of modem finite element codes to determine package response to puncture accidents can result in designs that are both safe and economical. The work reported in this paper is aimed at developing a method to analytically determine the wall thickness required to prevent puncture. For designers and regulators to have confidence in this analytical method, however, it must be benchrnarked against test results. A series of tests has been conducted with differing shell thicknesses, shell materials of mild steel and stainless steel, and shell backing materials of lead, foam, and air. The results of these tests have been compared with pre-test analytical predictions of the response obtained from the non-linear transient dynamic finite element program PRONT0-20. From this comparison it can be seen that the finite element method can accurately predict the response of packages to puncture accidents. This implies that an analytical technique based on the finite element method can be used to design packages having known response and margin of safety against tearing of the outer shell. In addition, the analytical technique can accurately predict the deformed shape of the package following the test. This may be important for subsequent calculations, such as external dose and heat input during a thermal event.