Design of the Defense Programs Package 3 (DPP-3)

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is the design authority for a new Type B hazardous materials transportation package designated as the Defense Programs Package 3 (DPP-3) for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The DPP-3 is intended to be a replacement for older DT-series packages that will be phased out of service. The DPP-3 has been developed using similar materials and fabrication methods employed in previous U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), DOE, and NNSA certified packages. The DPP-3 design criteria are derived from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code (BPVC), NNSA guidance and NRC guides in order to safely and securely transport a variety of payloads.The DPP-3 has been structurally analyzed using the Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software platform LS-DYNA from Livermore Software Technology Corporation (LSTC). The structural analyses performed for the DPP-3 serve two purposes: first, they aid in the design of the DPP-3 package during development, and second, they pinpoint which drop orientations will cause the most damage to the package during regulatory testing, since this package will be certified by the NNSA based on testing. Final acceptance by the NNSA will require experimental demonstration that the containment vessel (CV) housed within the drum overpack remains leaktight after enduring the entire regulatory testing sequence prescribed in Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations Part 71 (10 CFR 71). This paper will discuss the design approach, FEA structural evaluations for normal conditions of transport (NCT) and hypothetical accident conditions (HAC), evolution of the DPP-3 package design, and the lessons learned in development of the prototype design.