Development of the GA-4 and GA-9 Legal Weight Spent Fuel Casks*

GA is nearing the completion of the final design of two legal weight truck spent fuel shipping casks, the GA-4 Cask for PWR fuel and the GA-9 Cask for BWR fuel. GA is developing the casks under contract to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Field Office, Idaho, as part of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) Cask Systems Development Program (CSDP). The casks will transport intact spent fuel assemblies from commercial nuclear reactors sites to a monitored retrievable storage facility or a permanent repository. The DOE initiated the Cask Systems Development Program in response to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 which made DOE responsible for managing the program for permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste. This paper describes developmental and design verification testing programs, and the present status of the GA-4 and GA-9 Cask designs.