Study on the most severe condition for structural assessment of nuclear fuel transport package under impact loading

Advanced nuclear fuel transport packages are being needed to meet the fuel requirement for an increasing number of nuclear power plants. They must be approved by the IAEA safety standard where 9-m free drop test is a major concern in the overall assessments. As in the regulations, it is necessary to find the most severe condition, i.e., maximum damage of the nuclear fuel transport package. In this study, an integrated method with grey relational analysis (GRA) method and the quaternary triangular mesh (QTM) spherical sampling model is proposed to determine the maximum damage of package under drop loading. The finite element (FE) model of the HTR-PM600 fresh fuel transport package is firstly established for the drop analysis. On this basis, the design of experiment (DOE) for the design variables and design space (i.e. drop orientation) is carried out using the QTM. Then four selected orientations are determined through GRA and the main effect analysis. It is followed by the detailed analysis with respect to the safety performance. The results show that these orientations demonstrate important and irreplaceable potential as the most severe condition. This work can provide a reference to improve design of nuclear package.