Horizontal 30 cm Drop Test of 1/3 Scale ENSA ENUN 32P Dual Purpose Cask

SNL in collaboration with PNNL, BAM (Germany), and ENSA (Spain) conducted two 30 cm drop tests of a 1/3 scale cask. The tests took place in December 2018 at the BAM facility in Berlin. The 1/3 scale cask and impact limiters were provided by ENSA. This cask is a mockup of the ENSA ENUN 32P cask, which included a full load of 32 1/3 scale dummy fuel assemblies. The major goals were: complete normal conditions of transport (NCT) mechanical testing environment; better understand the potential implications of handling incidents; and learn if the transfer function from the cask through the basket to the fuel is the same for more severe impacts as for shocks in the over-the-rail tests. The tests were follow-on to the 2017 Spanish/US/Korean Multi-Modal International Transportation Test that obtained strain and acceleration data on surrogate fuel within the ENSA ENUN 32P cask, the basket, the cask, the cradle and the conveyance during heavy-haul truck, ship, and rail transport to validate the hypothesis that spent nuclear fuel can withstand the shocks and vibrations from normal conditions of transport. The 30 cm drop is the remaining NRC regulatory requirement under normal conditions of transportation for which no data on the surrogate fuel are available. While obtaining data on the fuel assemblies is not a direct requirement, it provides definitive information regarding the risk of fuel breakage from a cask drop from a height of 30 cm or less. Two horizontal drop configurations were implemented. In the first configuration the cask was in its regular transport and handling position and in the second configuration it was rotated 45 degrees counter clockwise about its longitudinal axis. The purpose of the second configuration was to quantify the potential variation of fuel assembly impact response due to a change in basket orientation. The accelerations on the dummy assemblies, basket, and cask body were measured during the test. SNL installed 34 accelerometers on 11 dummy assemblies, 12 accelerometers on the cask, and 3 accelerometers on the basket.This work was funded by the US Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy, BAM, and ENSA.