Session: OAC-04-03 Transportation of Radioactive and other Hazardous Materials III

Paper Number: 62121

Start Time: Wednesday, July 14, 2021, 05:00 PM

62121 - Development and Validation of Radiant Heat Systems to Test RAM Packages Under Non-Uniform Thermal Environments 

Certification of radioactive material (RAM) packages for storage and transportation requires various tiers of testing under hypothetical accident conditions (HAC) to assure safety.  One of these key testing aspects focuses on container response to thermal insults when a package includes materials that decompose, combust, or change phase between -40 °C and 800 °C.  Thermal insult for RAM packages during testing can be imposed from a direct indoor or outdoor pool fire, or it can also be imposed using a radiant heat system.  Depending on variables such as scale, heating rates, desired environment, intended diagnostics, etc., each of the different methods possess their advantages and disadvantages.  While a direct fire can be the closest method to represent a plausible insult, incorporating comprehensive diagnostics (e.g., high temperature and pressure measurements, X-ray tomography, etc.) in a pool fire test can pose various challenges due to the nature of a fire.  Radiant heat setups can instead be used to impose a comparable heat flux on a test specimen in a controlled manner that is suitable for comprehensive diagnostics.  With radiant heat setups, however, it can become challenging to impose desired non-uniform heat fluxes that would account for specimen orientation in a hypothetical accident scenario.  This work describes the development, validation, and implementation of a series of techniques used by Sandia National Laboratories to create non-uniform thermal environments using radiant heat sources for RAM packages as large as a 55-gallon drum.  

Presenting Author: Hector Mendoza Sandia National Laboratory

Authors:

Hector Mendoza Sandia National Laboratory
Victor Figueroa Sandia National Laboratories
Walter Gill Sandia National Laboratories
Scott Sanborn Sandia National Laboratories