Radioactive fuel cask railcar humping study
- comp.
The response of two radioactive shipping casks due to railroad humping shocks was calculated using a spring-mass model. The two railcars for these casks had different coupling mechanisms and different tiedown arrangements. Humping tests had been performed on one of the railcars (ATMX-600) and the resulting shock spectra was used to adjust the spring-mass model to get matching results. One car (designed for cask shipment) was equipped with Freightmaster E-15 end of car coupler and had about /sup 1///sub 8/ in. free travel of the cask skid relative to the car. The other car (ATMX-600), equipped with Miner RF-333 draft gear, was designed for nuclear weapon shipment and adapted to nuclear waste shipment by fastening the casks to the floor. Both car frames were built by the same manufacturer and are very similar. The response of the casks was put in shock spectra format and a parametric study was performed with various cask weights. Additional studies were done on the effects of fastening the loose cask, and using the Freightmaster end of car coupler on the ATMX car. Half-sine response spectra were overlaid to include the natural frequency of the cask tiedown. The resulting shock amplitude was plotted against the cask weight for each car. The results show a constant acceleration level for all the weights on the car with hydraulic end-of-car coupler which results from constant force at that impact velocity. The cask acceleration can be reduced by fastening it to the car, rather than allowing it to move freely through some small space. This study also shows that the cask response can be optimized on railcars without hydraulic draft gear by adjusting the tiedown stiffness to keep the tiedown frequency different than car frequencies.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia Labs., Albuquerque, N.Mex. (USA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- EY-76-C-04-0789
- OSTI ID:
- 5093640
- Report Number(s):
- SAND-78-0065C; CONF-780506-4
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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