Model Based Structural Evaluation and Design of Overpack Container for Bag-Buster Processing of TRU Waste Drums

This paper describes a materials and computational model based analysis utilized to design an engineered “overpack” container capable of maintaining structural integrity for confinement of transuranic wastes undergoing the cryo-vacuum stress based “Bag-Buster” process and satisfying DOT 7A waste package requirements. The engineered overpack is a key component of the “Ultra-BagBuster” process/system being commercially developed by UltraTech International for potential DOE applications to non-intrusively breach inner confinement layers (poly bags/packaging) within transuranic (TRU) waste drums. This system provides a lower cost/risk approach to mitigate hydrogen gas concentration buildup limitations on transport of high alpha activity organic transuranic wastes. Four evolving overpack design configurations and two materials (low carbon steel and 300 series stainless) were considered and evaluated using non-linear finite element model analyses of structural response. Properties comparisons show that 300-series stainless is required to provide assurance of ductility and structural integrity at both room and cryogenic temperatures. The overpack design were analyzed for five accidental drop impact orientations onto an unyielding surface (dropped flat on bottom, bottom corner, side, top corner, and top). The first three design configurations failed the bottom and top corner drop orientations (flat bottom, top, and side plates breached or underwent material failure). The fourth design utilized a protruding rim-ring (skirt) below the overpack’s bottom plate and above the overpack’s lid plate to absorb much of the impact energy and maintained structural integrity under all accidental drop loads at both room and cryogenic temperature conditions. Selected drop testing of the final design will be required to confirm design performance.