REACTOR PRESSURE VESSELS AS TYPE B TRANSPORT CONTAIMENT BOUNDARIES

Transportation risk and personnel exposure, as well as the cost of decommissioning nuclear power plants, can all be reduced significantly through the one-time use of the reactor pressure vessel as a containment boundary for shipping the activated internal components from the reactor site to a burial site. In order to help provide the technical basis for this end-use application, the ASME Board on Nuclear Codes and Standards, through its Subcommittee XI, has prepared a draft nuclear code case that contains requirements for any modifications to the vessel, including materials, design, fabrication, and examination. In particular, the requirements for evaluation of potential brittle fracture as the result of potentially low ambient shipping temperatures combined with hypothetical transportation accident loading are addressed. Existing ASME Code Section XI rules for linear elastic fracture mechanics evaluation of irradiated reactor pressure vessels have been adapted and included in the code case.