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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.
J. Barclay Andrews, II, K. F. Hansen
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 31 | Number 2 | February 1968 | Pages 304-313
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE68-A18242
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A numerical method for the solution of the time-dependent multigroup diffusion equations is presented. The method has the property that it is numerically unconditionally stable for all changes in reactor properties and all integration time-step sizes. The method assumes that the neutron flux and precursor concentration can be expressed as an exponential function over each time step. As a result of this assumption, and the factoring of the matrix form of the multigroup equations, it is shown that for the case of a constant step change in the properties of the system the asymptotic numerical eigensolution is proportional to the asymptotic eigensolution of the differential equations. An analysis of the truncation error associated with the method is also presented. Finally, a number of numerical experiments are presented which illustrate the accuracy, speed, and general utility of the method.