CONTRIBUTION TO FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF SIMULATION METHODS FOR IMPACT LIMITING MATERIALS AND STRUCTURES - A REPORT ON THE SITUATION FROM THE GERMAN QUEST-PROJECT

The safe transport and storage of radioactive material must be guaranteed by an appropriate package design. The efforts in this project are necessary to achieve modern analysis methods for developers, users and manufacturers of packages, i. e. transport and storage casks. The main objectives of the presented German QUEST-project, which is carried out in close cooperation with the ENREA-project of BAM (German Federal Institute for Material Research and Testing), are basic investigations in the area of describing the behaviour of material-specimen exposed to high-speed loading. Material samples from wood, polyurethane-foam and damper concrete are investigated with sophisticated methods. These materials are typical components of the impact limiting concepts of packages or interim storage facilities. The material samples are subject to a variety of possible appearing physical parameters, to achieve information how to describe the mechanical behaviour. The loads that appear during the drop of a transport and storage cask from a given predefined height onto different targets are the criteria for the experimental and numerical investigations. The necessary development of new material models and the proof of their validity with the experimental collected data has to be done first. With this procedure it is planned to obtain a more precise prediction during future numeric simulations. The reduction of the appearing physical loads during critical dropscenarios is the final objective. The presentation will give a brief overview of the aims and the progress within the QUEST-project. The first tasks of supplying the project with suitable specimen and materials and the efforts to ensure quality-control during delivery have been successfully completed. The design and the check of the test facilities are also finished. First simulations of pre-tests were successful and have shown the necessary precision of the test facilities and the possibilities of the numerical analyses. The more sophisticated simulations of the various examined materials have been started.