STRUCTURAL-ANALYSIS OF THE BASKET FOR A CASTOR TRANSPORT CASK

The cask CASTOR 440/84 is designed to be used for transportation and s torage of 84 spent PWR fuel elements from Soviet VVER 440 reactors. Th e fuel basket of the CASTOR 440/84 is subjected to the highest loading under type B test conditions, i.e. in the 9 m horizontal drop orienta tion. By quasistatic calculations using the FEM code ANSYS, the maximu m stress for a decleration of 82g have been calculated and it has been proven that the criticality safety of the fuel arrangement is guarant eed under these severe conditions. Additional calculations for an even higher deceleration of 115g demonstrate sufficient safety reserves of the design.