The dynamic analysis of nuclear waste cask under impact loading

Nuclear waste is sealed in steel casks and transported through the public domain to disposal sites. The casks are designed primarily to transport and store 30–55 gallon drums of waste. The casks meet safety requirements that govern how they respond to an accidental drop onto rigid ground. In this paper, a finite element method was used to perform impact analysis on a cask. The calculation simulates the deformation of a 55 gallon cask during and after an edge impact form a height of 1.2 m, falling at a 30° incline onto rigid ground. The regulations require that the plastic strain at an impact corner must not exceed the yielding strain of the cask material.