Validation of the Computational Fluid Dynamics Method using the Aboveground Configuration of the Dry Cask Simulator

Journal Article · Sat Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society

OSTI ID:23050408

Zigh, A.; Gonzalez, S.; Solis, J. ^[1]; Durbin, S. G.; Lindgren, E. R. ^[2]

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1. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001 (United States)
2. Sandia National Laboratories (United States)

Dry cask applicants submit their spent nuclear fuel dry storage and transportation cask designs to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for certification under Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) Part 72, 'Licensing Requirements for the Independent Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel, High-Level Radioactive Waste, and Reactor-Related Greater Than Class C Waste'. The NRC staff performs its technical review of these designs in accordance with 10 CFR Part 72 and NUREG-1536, 'Standard Review Plan for Spent Fuel Dry Storage Systems at a General License Facility,' Revision 1, issued July 2010. To ensure that the cask and fuel material temperatures of the dry cask storage system remain within the allowable limits or criteria for normal, off-normal, and accident conditions, the NRC staff performs a thermal review as part of the technical review. Recent applications increasingly have used thermalhydraulic analyses using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes (e.g., ANSYS FLUENT) to demonstrate the adequacy of the thermal design. The NRC performs validation studies of the FLUENT CFD code to assist it in making regulatory decisions to ensure adequate protection for storage and transportation casks. Recent advances in dry storage cask designs have significantly increased the maximum thermal load allowed in a cask in part by increasing the efficiency of internal conduction pathways and by increasing the internal convection through greater canister helium pressure. In efforts to further validate these designs, the NRC in conjunction with the Department of Energy and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) are conducting an experiment to capture the effects of elevated helium pressures and accurately portray the external convection of aboveground and belowground canister dry cask systems.

• OSTI ID: 23050408
• Journal Information: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Vol. 116; ISSN 0003-018X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
42 ENGINEERING
CERTIFICATION
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
DESIGN
DRY STORAGE
EFFICIENCY
FLUID MECHANICS
HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
RADIATION PROTECTION
REGULATIONS
SAFETY
SAFETY STANDARDS
SIMULATORS
SPENT FUEL CASKS
SPENT FUELS
VALIDATION