Severe Transportation Accidents: Do Used Nuclear Fuel Transportation Packages Survive Real World Accidents?

In 2007, a severe transportation accident occurred near Oakland, California, on a section of Interstate 880 known as the “MacArthur Maze,” involving a gasoline tanker truck which impacted an overpass support column and burst into flames. The fire caused the collapse of portions of the Interstate 580 overpass onto the remains of the tractor-trailer. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, with assistance from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses, the Southwest Research Institute, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, examined the accident conditions in order to characterize the fire and collapse that occurred, analyzed material samples from the collapsed I-580 overpass as well as the gasoline tanker truck, and developed a fire model of the accident. This was followed by development of a finite element analysis model to determine the impacts of this accident on the thermal and structural performance of a spent nuclear fuel (SNF) transportation package. The analysis results will be used to determine any potential regulatory implications related to the safe transport of SNF in the U.S. This paper provides a summary of this effort and presents some preliminary results and conclusions.