DROP TESTING OF THE NCS 45

The NCS 45 packaging is intended for a variety of contents ranging from irradiated PWR, BWR and FBR fuel pins and parts of fuel pins to non-fissile radioactive material. The rather general content description allows low cooling times and very high burn -up values. For loading/unloading the packaging is equipped with a rotary lock drive on the top end and with a removable plug on the bottom end. Hence, it can be used for dry and wet loading/unloading in vertical and horizontal orientation. Even upside -down loading is a possibility. The cask is of a stainless steel - lead - stainless steel design. It has a usable inner diameter of 220 mm, a usable length of 4625 mm and a gross mass of 22 500 kg. For drop testing a 1:3 scale model was manufactured which complied in all safety relevant par ts with the original packaging. With this model 19 drop tests in 8 drop test sequences were carried out. The drop tests were carried out at the BAM drop test facility in Berlin. Key findings were: ? the shock absorber design protected the lid area from impact of the bar, ? horizontal and slap-down 9 m drop are not redundant, ? the “shear off” test did not cause any serious damage, ? the delayed impact may cause high stresses in the closure system, ? there was no lead slump at maximum operating temperature , ? one NCS 45 model survived all drop tests.