Methodology for Evaluating the Consequences of Aircraft Impacts into Spent FuelTransportation/Storage Systems

摘要

Aircraft crashes into spent fuel transportation and storage systems have the potential to cause anrnextreme loading event, perhaps beyond the design basis for the system. These crashes may berninitiated by accident or by deliberate sabotage. This paper will describe a methodology to assess thernvulnerability of spent fuel transportation and storage systems to impacts resulting from aircraftrncrashes. The first step is to determine what threat must be protected against. Important factors arernthe probability of a crash, the type of aircraft, and the impact velocity and angle. The nextrnconsideration is the type of analysis that needs to be performed. At this stage a screening analysisrnshould be performed to further reduce the number of analyses that must be performed. Detailedrnassessments must be carried out for the remaining scenarios. These assessments can be carried outrnby hand calculations, finite element calculations, or tests. The purpose of the detailed assessment isrnto determine the damage state of the transportation or storage system and the environmental sourcetermrnfor use in consequence analyses. A consequence code that models atmospheric transport andrnradiological health consequences is used to determine the effect of the radioactive material releasernon emergency responders, clean-up personnel, and the general public.rnThe method given in this paper can be used for performing risk assessments, safety evaluations, orrnvulnerability assessments. However, the cost of performing a detailed comprehensive assessment isrnquite large, and usually only a few cases are examined and the results extrapolated to other cases.