A Spent Fuel Transportation Cask for the 21st Century

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 authorized the U.S. Department of Energy to establish a national integrated system for the disposal of spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste. The Act also made the DOE responsible for the transportation of spent fuel from reactors to the repository or to any other federal handling or storage facility developed under the Act. The DOE, through its Office of Civilian Radioactive Haste Management, has initiated the development of spent fuel transportation casks with the objective of having a licensed, tested, and proven operational cask fleet by the end of this century. Cask systems for all three transportation modes <truck, rail and barge) are being developed under that program. This paper presents a road cask design for Legal Height Truck shipments of spent fuel that offers a significant increase in payload compared to existing casks in the same weight class.