THERMAL PERFORMANCE OF A SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL TRANSPORTATIONPACKAGE EXPOSED TO DIFFERENT TUNNEL FIRES

摘要

A technical program at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) sponsored by the Department ofrnEnergy (DOE), Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, is underway concerning thernsurvivability of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) transportation packages in tunnel fire environments.rnThis program is analyzing several tunnel fire scenarios and casks in order to better understandrnthis thermal environment and determine the severity of tunnel fires relative to the regulatoryrnthermal requirements. The program will provide useful data and information for conductingrnrouting analyses, for communication of the relative safety of SNF shipments to the public, andrnfor first responders in the event of a tunnel fire by means of specific fire threat tables forrnparticular tunnels. This paper summarizes preliminary results from a series of tunnel firernanalyses performed to investigate the effects of tunnel design on the resulting thermalrnenvironment that a spent nuclear fuel transportation package positioned inside the tunnel wouldrnexperience. The computational fluid dynamics fire code CAFE-3D was used to perform thernanalyses presented in this paper. Preliminary results show enhancement of heat transfer when thernwidth of the tunnel was reduced; however, tunnel length did not have a strong effect on heatrntransfer.