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3D Printing Possibilities: Additive Manufacturing Impact Limiters for Transportation Casks
With the significant advances in additive manufacturing (AM), otherwise known as 3D printing, Orano Federal Services and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte recently re-examined the capabilities to print impact limiters for transportation casks used to ship spent nuclear fuel. Impact limiters protect transportation casks (sometimes also referred to as transportation overpacks) and their contents during an accident. Impact limiter designs must withstand testing based on a certain significance level of hypothetical accidents, including drops, crushing, fires, and immersion in water.
Sofia Guerra, Eoin Butler
Nuclear Technology | Volume 202 | Number 2 | May-June 2018 | Pages 132-140
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2017.1419781
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Horizon Nuclear Power intends to build advanced boiling water reactors at Wylfa and Oldbury in the United Kingdom based on the Hitachi-GE (Hitachi) design. In accordance with U.K. policy for new nuclear build, Hitachi, as the reactor designer, is the requesting party to the Generic Design Assessment (GDA), during which the reactor design will be reviewed by the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the Environment Agency. An important step in the GDA process is to demonstrate the viability of the approach developed by Hitachi-GE for the assessment and justification of smart devices. This was done by means of pilot studies of safety class 1 (SC1) and SC2 devices. This paper describes the scope, criteria, process, and approach for the SC1 pilot study and summarizes the results of the study.