Response of Spent Fuel Transportation Casks to Explosive Loadings*

Casks for the transportation of spent power reactor fuel can be exposed to explosive loadings from several causes. Exposure can come from an accident involving a propane or other hydrocarbon tanker, from an accident involving military or industrial explosives, or from deliberate sabotage. The regulations for the design of these casks do not specifically include requirements for resistance to blast loadings, but the hypothetical accident sequence that the casks are required to survive assure some measure of blast resistance. To perform accurate risk and security assessments, this blast resistance must be quantified. This paper will discuss the methodology used to determine the blast resistance of a representative rail and a representative truck spent fuel transportation cask. The methodology discussed in this paper can be used to determine the response to explosive loadings other than the one discussed in this paper or to determine the effect of explosive loadings on other casks. Due to the sensitive nature of this topic, this paper is intentionally vague on a number of parameters used in the analyses.