Thermal Test for Transporting Vitrified High Level Radioactive Waste

This paper describes a furnace thermal test (888°C, 30 min), and corresponding analysis on a transport packaging to be used for vitrified high level radioactive waste, following a 9 m drop test. The specimen packaging is a full-scale (100 t) hybrid packaging which has structural features of both the BNFL (UK) and COGEMA (France) corresponding packagings. A two-dimensional and an axi-symmetric model were used to represent and analyse the thermal features of the packaging and the combustion of the neutron shielding. It was observed that the maximum temperature during and after the test were both adequately below the regulatory design values and that fairly good agreement between the test results and analysis results was obtained, giving support to the thermal analysis methods.