New outcomes from combustion of wood inside package shock absorbers after fire test - Archive ouverte HAL
Conference Papers Year : 2013

New outcomes from combustion of wood inside package shock absorbers after fire test

Abstract

According to the IAEA transport regulation, a fire test (800°C for 30 minutes) is required following the mechanical tests in accident conditions of transport. Some package designs are equipped with wood shock absorbers in a steel casing. After the mechanical tests, the casing may be damaged in some places, in particular due to the penetration of the 15 cm diameter steel bar used for the regulatory 1 m drop test. After the 30 minutes fire test, the heated wood, combined with air accessibility inside casing due to the damages, may provide the necessary conditions to maintain combustion of wood. Then, the heat generated by the combustion of the wood could increase the temperatures of the package components located near the shock absorber, as for example the elastomer O-rings of the closure system. In order to investigate this phenomenon, and thus appraising its consequences on safety analysis, IRSN has performed recently a fire test. A full-scale model, representative of shock absorbers which equip packages used to transport fuel assemblies, has been manufactured with simulated damages on the casing resulting from the 1 m and 9 m regulatory drop tests. A dedicated heat exchanger has been developed to simulate the thermal power of the radioactive content. This exchanger maintains the inner surface of the shock absorber at constant temperature. Moreover, a specific instrumentation was implemented to locate and characterize the heat flux between the shock absorber and the package (during the fire test and the cooling time). After the end of the hydrocarbon fire, wood combustion continued for four days inside the steel casing inducing important heat fluxes towards the lid (up to 8 kW/m²) and high temperatures (up to 460°C locally) on the rear side of the shock absorber. Finally, we evaluated by numerical calculations the temperature increases of the gaskets, which equipped the package components, taking into account the fire configuration and measurements performed on the specimen.
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
DURVILLE_2013_New_outcomes_combustion_wood_inside_package_shock_absorbers_after_fire.pdf (975 Ko) Télécharger le fichier
Origin Files produced by the author(s)
Licence
Copyright

Dates and versions

hal-04338684 , version 1 (26-02-2024)

Licence

Copyright

Identifiers

  • HAL Id : hal-04338684 , version 1

Cite

Benoit Eckert, Benoît Durville, Sarah Fourgeaud, Igor Le Bars, Christophe Marquie. New outcomes from combustion of wood inside package shock absorbers after fire test. 17th International Symposium on the Packaging and Transportation of Radioactive Materials PATRAM 2013, Institute of nuclear materials management, Aug 2013, SAN FRANCISCO (CA), United States. 10 p. ⟨hal-04338684⟩
19 View
16 Download

Share

More