Drop Analysis of Structures and Development of Impact Energy Absorber

Historic radioactive waste generated, due to various research and development activities at Chalk River Laboratories (CRL), as part of fuel development process are stored in containers in Tile holes. The fuel in the historic containers needs to be removed to new containers that provide improved storage conditions. A new above ground facility is being developed to store the historic containers along with their contents. It involves retrieval and transportation of the historic storage containers and their contents to the new facility, repackaging them into new containers, and storing them in steel storage tubes inside a concrete storage block protected from the environment by a steel overbuilding. During transportation, repackaging and storing of the historic storage containers, drop events might occur that could potentially compromise the structural integrity of the components of the packaging and storage systems. The present paper deals with the development of impact energy absorbing device (LOAD DISTRIBUTOR CAP) and the drop analysis that has been carried out to assess the structural integrity of the vacuum vessel assembly and the storage tube assembly structures for various drop events.