Development of Rail Accident Rates for Spent Nuclear Fuel Rail Shipments - 17088

Conference · Sat Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 2017

OSTI ID:22794503

Abkowitz, Mark ^[1]; Bickford, Erica ^[2]

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1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Vanderbilt University (United States)
2. Office of Nuclear Energy, U.S. Department of Energy (United States)

A key factor in evaluating the safety of rail shipments involving the transport of commercial spent nuclear fuel (SNF) is the development of transportation accident rates that are reflective of the unique characteristics associated with these train operations. Typical rail freight operations may involve consists of a hundred cars or more, which may pass through multiple rail yards for trains to be decoupled and reassembled. In contrast, trains carrying SNF are anticipated to be operated in consists of considerably fewer cars. Moreover, they could be operated in a dedicated fashion, thereby avoiding yard decoupling and reassembling activities in transiting from shipment origin to destination. This paper and presentation describes the methodology developed to estimate rail accident rates for future commercial SNF shipments and presents the corresponding results. The analysis utilizes the Federal Railroad Administration accident database, and takes into consideration accidents whose root causes are independent of the size of the consist, as well as those that are associated exclusively with yard activities. (authors)

• Research Organization: WM Symposia, Inc., PO Box 27646, 85285-7646 Tempe, AZ (United States)
• OSTI ID: 22794503
• Report Number(s): INIS-US--19-WM-17088
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
RADIATION ACCIDENTS
SAFETY
SPENT FUELS
TRANSPORT