• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.133-149
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• 2022

The design of a wooden impact limiter equipped to a transportation cask for radioactive materials was optimized. According to International Atomic Energy Agency Safety Standards, 9 m drop tests should be performed on the transportation cask to evaluate its structural integrity in a hypothetical accident condition. For impact resistance, the size of the impact limiter should be properly determined for the impact limiter to absorb the impact energy and reduce the impact force. Therefore, the design parameters of the impact limiter were optimized to obtain a feasible optimal design. The design feasibility criteria were investigated, and several objectives were defined to obtain various design solutions. Furthermore, a probabilistic approach was introduced considering the uncertainties included in an engineering system. The uncertainty of material properties was assumed to be a random variable, and the probabilistic feasibility, based on the stochastic approach, was evaluated using reliability. Monte Carlo simulation was used to calculate the reliability to ensure a proper safety margin under the influence of uncertainties. The proposed methodology can provide a useful approach for the preliminary design of the impact limiter prior to the detailed design stage.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.826-833
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• 1998

The energy-absorbing characteristic of impact limiters affects the cask design so significantly that it should be evaluated as accurate as possible. The objective of this study is to find the influence of the impact limiter's steel case and gusset plates which enclose the shock absorbing cellular material on the impact energy absorption. The influence of impact limiter's steel case and gusset plate stiffeners on the impact energy absorption behavior under horizontal drop impact was evaluated for a radioactive isotope transport cask. Though the impact limiters mitigate the impact damage of the cask, the impact limiter's steel case and gusset plate stiffeners increase the impact force so significantly that should be designed as soft as possible. The impact analysis without considering impact limiter's steel case and gusset plates stiffener gives non-conservative results, so the stiffness of the steel case and gusset plates should be considered in impact analysis.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.20-28
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• 2008

According to IAEA regulations, a transportation package of radioactive material should perform its intended function of containing the radioactive contents after the drop test, which is one of hypothetical accident conditions. Impact limiters attached to a transport cask absorb the most of impact energy. So, it is appreciated to determine properly the shape, size and material of impact limiters. A material data needed in this determination is a dynamic one. In this study, several materials considered as those of impact limiters were tested by a drop weight facility to acquire dynamic material characteristics data. Impact absorbing volume of the impact limiter was derived mathematically for each drop condition. A size optimization of impact limiter was conducted. The derived impact absorbing volumes were applied as constraints. These volumes should be less than critical volumes generated based on the dynamic material characteristics. The derived procedure to decide the shape of impact limiter can be useful at the preliminary design stage when the transportation package's outline is roughly determined and applied as input value.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.191-203
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• 2000

This paper describes the beneficial effect of weldment imperfection of the cask impact limiter, by applying intermittent-weld, for impact energy absorbing behavior. From the point of view of energy absorbing efficiency of an energy absorber, it is desirable to reduce the crush load resistance and increase the deformation of the energy absorber within certain limit. This paper presents the test results of intermittent-weldment and the analysis results of cask impacts and the discussions of the improvement of impact mitigating effect by the imperfect-weldment. The rupture of imperfect weldment of an impact limiter improves the energy-absorbing efficiency by reducing the crush load amplitude without loss of total energy absorption. The beneficial effect of weldment imperfection should be considered to the cask impact limiter design.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.9-16
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• 2009

Transport package for radioactive material should be structurally safe under puncture drop condition and its safety should be verified by test and numerical analysis. Most finite element analyses for puncture drop have been performed without modeling the impact limiter since failure is occurred in the materials of the impact limiter. This paper presents a new modeling methodology, where an element is eroded in case that the material's failure criteria are reached at the element's integration point, to investigate the effect of the impact limiter in the puncture process. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is shown through the puncture drop analysis of hotcell transport cask, which is under design in KAERI. The results show that about 80 percent of the total impact energy is absorbed due to the deformation of impact limiter. Using the present method the puncture drop can be analyzed more accurately, but it would give conservative results compared to the actual test condition.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.10
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• pp.3766-3777
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• 2022

It is essential to ensure the safety of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) transport cask in drop situation that is included in transport accident scenarios. The safety of the drop situation is affected by the impact absorption performance of impact limiters. Therefore, when designing an impact limiter, the uncertainty in the material properties that affect the impact absorption performance must be considered. In this study, the material properties of the wood inside the impact limiter were selected as the variables for a parametric study. The sensitivity analysis of the drop response of the SNF transport cask with impact limiter was performed. The minimum wood strength required to prevent a direct collision between the cask and floor was derived from the analysis results. In addition, the plastic strain response was analyzed and strain-based evaluation was performed. Based on this result, the critical values of wood properties that change the impact dynamic characteristics were investigated. Finally, the optimal material properties of wood were obtained to secure the structural safety of the SNF transport cask. The results of this study can contribute to the development of SNF transport cask, thereby ensuring safety in transport accident conditions.

• Composites Research
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.58-64
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• 2015

The purpose of this paper is to suggest the effective equivalent finite element model for the impact limiter of a nuclear spent fuel shipping cask made of sandwich composite panels. The sandwich composite panels were composed of a metallic facesheet and a core material made of urethane foam, balsa wood and red wood, respectively. The effective equivalent finite element model for the impact limiter was proposed by comparing the results of low-velocity impact test of sandwich panels. An explicit finite element analysis based on LS-DYNA 3D was done in this study. The results showed that the solid elements were recommended to model the facesheet and core of sandwich panels for impact limiter compared to combination modeling method, in which the layered shell element for facesheet and solid element for core material are used. In particular, the solid element for balsa and red wood core materials should be modeled by the element elimination approach.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.36 no.11
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• pp.1345-1352
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• 2012

This paper aims to evaluate the low-velocity impact responses and mechanical properties of balsa-wood and urethane-foam core materials and their sandwich panels, which are applied as the impact limiter of a nuclear spent fuel shipping cask. For the urethane-foam core, which is isotropic, tensile, compressive, and shear mechanical tests were conducted. For the balsa-wood core, which is orthotropic and shows different material properties in different orthogonal directions, nine mechanical properties were determined. The impact test specimens for the core material and their sandwich panel were subjected to low-velocity impact loads using an instrumented testing machine at impact energy levels of 1, 3, and 5 J. The experimental results showed that both the urethane-foam and the balsa-wood core except in the growth direction (z-direction) had a similar impact response for the energy absorbing capacity, contact force, and indentation. Furthermore, it was found that the urethane-foam core was suitable as an impact limiter material owing to its resistance to fire and low cost, and the balsa-wood core could also be strongly considered as an impact limiter material for a lightweight nuclear spent fuel shipping cask.

• Journal of Auto-vehicle Safety Association
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.5-10
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• 2011

Under the full frontal crash event, seatbelt system is the most typical and primary restraint device that prevents the second impact between an occupant and vehicle interior parts by limiting the forward motion of an occupant in the vehicle occupant packaging space. Today's restraint systems typically include the three-point seat belt with the pretensioner and the load limiter. A pretensioner preemptively tightens the seat belts removing any slack between a passenger and belt webbing which leads to early restraint of a passenger. After that a load limiter controls level of belt load by releasing the belt webbing to reduce occupant injurys. In this study, load characteristics of load limiters are optimized by the computer simulation with a MADYMO model for a frontal impact against the rigid wall at 56kph and then we suggest performance requirements. We derived optimum load characteristic from the results using four vehicle simulation models represented by the vehicle. Based on the results, we suggest the performance from the results of the second optimization using the simulation considering the design and the standardization. Finally, the performance requirements is verified by the sled tests including the load limiter device for the full vehicle condition.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.98-102
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• 2002

As the nuclear power plant has been operated continuously and increased gradually, transportation and storage of spent fuel are seriously considered nowadays. The transportation cask which contains radioactive material needs to be inspected about structural safety. About safety verification, description of IAEA Safety Standards states that cask must withstand hypothetical accident conditions. In this paper, 9m free drop impact analysis was performed for transportation cask and impact limiter by using the finite element methods. Furthermore, we obtained the dynamic behavior of wood to as compared with safety test results, and verified the safety of transportation cask.