TN International Accurate Shielding Analysis for Casks

A more in-depth shielding analysis leads to better exploitation of the casks, increased performances, and safer conditions. The new generation cask designs are optimized to obtain maximum payloads in order to reduce the number of shipments of the transport casks and decrease dose equivalent rates received by the personnel. As a result, shielding analysis for the new generation of casks is becoming more important as dose rates approach the limits set by the regulatory authorities. In order to achieve credible shielding analysis methods, advanced computational analysis techniques and data are implemented, including the three-dimensional Monte Carlo codes and recent evaluations of nuclear data (cross sections) with more evaluated treatment of cross sections. Finally, a large program of benchmarks involving the casks validates the dose rates calculations procedures. The dose rate measurements of several casks and the three-dimensional (3D) Monte Carlo code TRIPOLI-4.3 have been used to evaluate the performances on the shielding calculations of TN International. The comparisons between measured and calculated dose rates have a disparity of less than 10%.