• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.45 no.1
• /
• pp.41-52
• /
• 2013

Adequate design of engineered barriers, including canister, buffer and backfill, is important for the safe disposal of high-level radioactive waste. Three-dimensional computer simulations were carried out under different condition to examine the thermal and mechanical behavior of engineered barriers and rock mass. The research looked at five areas of importance, the effect of the swelling pressure, water content of buffer, density of compacted bentonite, emplacement type and the selection of failure criteria. The results highlighted the need to consider tensile stress in the outer shell of a canister due to thermal expansion of the canister and the swelling pressure from the buffer for a more reliable design of an underground repository system. In addition, an adequate failure criterion should be used for the buffer and backfill.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.91-99
• /
• 2017

Domestically developed concrete storage casks include an internal canister to maintain the confinement integrity of radio-active materials. In this study, we analyzed the depth of flaws caused by loads that propagate canister weld cracks under normal, off-normal and accident conditions, and evaluated the maximum allowable weld flaw depth needed to secure the structural integrity of the canister weld and to reduce the welding time of the internal canister lid of the concrete storage cask. Structural analyses for normal, off-normal and accident conditions were performed using the general-purpose finite element analysis program ABAQUS; the allowable flaw depth was assessed according to ASME B&PV Code Section XI. Evaluation results revealed an allowable canister weld flaw depth of 18.75 mm for the concrete storage cask, which satisfies the critical flaw depth recommended in NUREG-1536.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
• /
• v.26 no.5
• /
• pp.359-371
• /
• 2013

This paper is the first paper among two papers which constitute the paper about the rigid body dynamic analysis on the spent nuclear disposal canister under accidental drop and impact on to the ground. This paper performed the general theoretical study on the rigid body dynamic analysis. Through this study the impulsive force which is occurring in the spent nuclear fuel disposal canister under accidental drop and impact to the ground and required for the structural safety design of the canister is intended to be theoretically formulated. The main content of the theoretical study is about the equation of motion in the multibody dynamics. On the basis of this study the impulsive force which is occurring in the multibody in the case of collision between multibody is theoretically formulated. The application of this theoretically formulated impulsive force to computing the impulsive force occurring in the spent nuclear fuel disposal canister under accidental drop and impact to the ground is investigated.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
• /
• v.21 no.1
• /
• pp.72-83
• /
• 2017

A thermo-fluid dynamic analysis was performed through the numerical simulation of a missile canister. Calculation was made in a fixed analytical volume and fully evaporated water was used as a coolant. To analyze the interaction among the hot gas, coolant, and mixture flow, Realizable $k-{\varepsilon}$ turbulence and VOF(Volume Of Fluid) model were chosen and parametric study was performed with the change of coolant flow rate. It could be found that the pressure on the canister top nonlinearly increased with the increase of coolant flow rate. Temperature and coolant distribution were closely related to the flow behavior in canister. Temperature on the canister bottom indicated a decrease being proportional to coolant flow rate in early times but after a specific time, the temperature increased with the tendency being reversed. In addition, the early part of temperature showed a fluctuating phenomenon because of the overall circulatory flow of mixture gas.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
• /
• v.16 no.4
• /
• pp.369-376
• /
• 2003

In this paper, a nonlinear structural analysis for the composite structure composed of the spent nuclear fuel disposal canister and the 50㎝ thick bentonite buffer is carried out to predict the collapse of the canister while the horizontal symmetric sudden rock movement of 10㎝ is applied on the composite structure. This sudden rock movement is anticipated by the earthquake etc. at a deep underground. Elastoplastic material model is adopted. Drucket-Prager yield criterion is used for the material yield prediction of the bentonite buffer and von-Mises yield criterion is used for the material yield prediction of the canister(cast iron, copper). Analysis results show that even though very large deformations occur beyond the yield point in the bentonite buffet, the canister structure still endures elastic small strains and stresses below the yield strength. Hence, the 50㎝ thick bentonite buffet can protect the canister safely against the 10㎝ sudden rock movement by earthquake etc.. Analysis results also show that bending deformations occur in the canister structure due to the shear deformation of the bentonite buffer.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
• /
• v.28 no.5
• /
• pp.451-457
• /
• 2015

This paper presents the analytical closed form solution for the impact load of a collision between rigid bodies and its application to a spent nuclear fuel disposal canister accidentally dropped and impacted on the ground. This paper performed a study on the numerical rigid body dynamic analysis to compute the impact load between two rigid bodies, especially, the impulsive force which is applied to the spent nuclear fuel disposal canister in the accidental drop and impact event on the ground. Through this study the impulsive force which is occurring in the spent nuclear fuel disposal canister under accidental drop and impact event on the ground and required in the process of structural safety design of the canister is computed numerically. The main content of this numerical study is about the technical method how to compute the impulsive force applied to the canister under the accidental drop and impact event on the ground by using the commercial computer code for the rigid body dynamic analysis. On the basis of this study a problem to compute the impulsive force which is occurring in the canister in the case of collision with the ground is numerically treated. This numerically computed impulsive force is compared with the theoretical value, which shows a good agreement.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.233-242
• /
• 2018

To overcome the low mechanical strength and corrosion behavior of a carbon steel canister at high temperature condition of a deep borehole, SiC ceramics were studied as an alternative material for the disposal canister. In this paper, a design concept for a SiC canister, along with an outer stainless steel container, was proposed, and its manufacturing feasibility was tested by fabricating several 1/3 scale canisters. The proposed canister can contain one PWR assembly. The outer container was also prepared for the string formation of SiC canisters. Thermal conductivity was measured for the SiC canister. The canister had a good thermal conductivity of above $70W{\cdot}m^{-1}{\cdot}K^{-1}$ at $100^{\circ}C$. The structural stability was checked under KURT environment, and it was found that the SiC ceramics did not exhibit any change for the 3 year corrosion test at $70^{\circ}C$. Therefore, it was concluded that SiC ceramics could be a good alternative to carbon steel in application to deep borehole disposal canisters.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
• /
• v.4 no.3
• /
• pp.301-309
• /
• 2006

KDC-1 canister for PWR spent fuels which will be used for the Korean Reference Disposal System was developed. The structural analysis of the canister was carried out as a part of the safety analysis. Two conditions, disposal condition and handling condition, were considered for the structural analysis. Three kinds of load cases, normal, abnormal and rock movement, were considered for the disposal condition. The results of the calculation showed that the safety factors from the structural analysis were greater than the design requirements. Two accident scenarios, gripper failure accident and canister drop accident, were analyzed for the handling condition. According to the gripper failure scenario analysis, the handling machine with grippers could be used even in the cases that one or two grippers failed. The maximum von Mises stress from the canister drop accident scenario was 0.762 MPa, which was negligible compared with the yield stress of nodular cast iron. The proposed KDC-1 canister for PWR spent fuels proves to be safe under the repository condition that is based upon the Korean reference disposal system according to the structural analysis for disposal condition and handling condition.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
• /
• v.15 no.3
• /
• pp.471-480
• /
• 2002

In this paper, the thermal stress analysis of spent nuclear fuel disposal canister in a deep repository at 500 m underground is carried out for the basic design of the canister. Since the nuclear fuel disposal usually emits much heat, a long term safe repository at a deep bedrock is used. Under this situation, the canister experiences the thermal load due to the heat generation of spent nuclear fuels in the basket. Hence, in this paper the thermal stress analysis is executed using the finite element method. The finite clement code Eot the analysis Is not written directly, but a commercial code, NISA, is used because of the complexity of the structure and the large number of elements required for the analysis. The analysis result shows that even though the thermal stress is added to the stress generated by the hydrostatic underground water pressure and the swelling pressure of the bentonite buffer, the total stress is still smaller than the yield stress of the cast iron. Hence, the canister is still structurally safe when the thermal loads we included in the external loads applied on the canister.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
• /
• v.32 no.2
• /
• pp.75-86
• /
• 2019

The biggest obstacle in the nuclear power generation is the high level radioactive waste such as the spent nuclear fuel. High level radioactivities and generated heat make the safe treatment of the spent nuclear fuel very difficult. Nowadays, the only treatment method is a deep geological disposal technology. This paper treats the structural safe design problem of the spent nuclear fuel disposal canister which is one of the core technologies of the deep geological disposal technology. Especially, this paper executed the nonlinear structural analysis for the stresses and deformations occurring in the canister due to the impulsive force applied to the spent nuclear fuel disposal canister in the case of an accidental drop and ground impact event from the transportation vehicle in the repository. The main content of the analysis is about that the impulsive force is obtained using the commercial rigid body dynamic analysis computer code, RecurDyn, and the stress and deformation caused by this impulsive force are obtained using the commercial finite element static structural analysis computer code, NISA. The analysis results show that large stresses and deformations may occur in the canister, especially in the rid or the bottom of the canister, due to the impulsive force occurring during the collision impact period.