Combustion Simulation of Transportation Package Performance in Severe, Long Duration Fire - Update

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) is responsible for the long term management of Canada’s used nuclear fuel. Transportation is a key aspect of long term management of used nuclear fuel.Radioactive material must be transported in very robust packages. Transportation package robustness is demonstrated by satisfying stringent Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) and IAEA regulations. The IAEA regulatory thermal test for Type B packages is designed to bound conditions in historic transportation fire accidents. The 30 minute, 800°C, fully engulfing regulatory fire test imposes an incredibly severe set of conditions on the test specimen. However, the severity of this thermal test is difficult to communicate to the general public, especially in comparison to real-world transportation accidents involving long duration fires.NWMO has developed an advanced computational fluid dynamics combustion model to simulate real-world long duration transportation accident fires. This fire simulation model will help study transportation package performance in hypothetical severe fires. Such a model and knowledge gained during development will help bridge the information gap between the 30 minute regulatory thermal test and real world long duration transportation accident fires.This paper describes the development and benchmarking of NWMO’s combustion simulation model against real-world physical fire tests.