Radioactive material transportation package design using numerical optimization techniques
Increasing computational speed has led to the development and use of sophisticated numerical methods in radioactive material (RAM) transportation container design. The design of a RAM container often involves a complex coupling of structural, thermal, and radioactive shielding analyses. Sandia National Laboratories has integrated automatic mesh generation, explicit structural finite element analysis, transient thermal finite element analysis, and numerical optimization techniques into a unified RAM container design tool to increase the efficiency of both the design process and the resultant design through coupled analyses. Although development of this technique has progressed significantly, inaccurate numerical gradients due to design space nonsmoothness and excessive computational time have hampered successful implementation of numerical optimization as a ``black box`` design tool. This paper presents the details of analysis tool integration, simplified model development, constraint boundary nonsmoothness difficulties, and numerical optimization results for a lightweight composite-overpack Type B RAM package subject to dynamic crush and fuel fire accident condition constraints.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 58050
- Report Number(s):
- SAND--95-0834C; CONF-950740--31; ON: DE95011016
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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