Seismic considerations for spent nuclear fuel storage in dry casks

To aid the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission,Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) was contracted to investigate the seismic behavior of typical dry cask storage systems. Parametric evaluations characterized the sensitivity of calculated cask response characteristics to input parameters. The parametric evaluation investigated two generic cask designs (cylindrical and rectangular),three different foundation types (soft soil,hard soil,and rock),and three different casks to pad coefficients of friction (0.2,0.55,0.8) for earthquakes with peak ground accelerations of 0.25g,0.6g,1.0g and 1.25g. A total of 1 165 analyses were completed,with regression analyses being performed on the resulting cask response data to determine relationships relating the mean (16 % and 84 % confidence intervals on the mean) to peak ground acceleration,peak ground velocity,and pseudo-spectral acceleration at 1 Hz and 5 % damping. In general,the cylindrical casks experienced significantly larger responses in comparison to the rectangular cask. The cylindrical cask experienced larger top of cask displacements,larger cask rotations (rocking),and more occurrences of cask toppling (the rectangular cask never toppled over). The cylindrical cask was also susceptible to rolling once rocking had been initiated,a behavior not observed in the rectangular cask. Cask response was not overly sensitive to foundation type,but was significantly dependent on the response spectrum employed.