<p class="MsoNormal">Radioactive materials, such as plutonium bearing oxides, are stored in 3013 containers at the US Department of Energy Savannah River Site (SRS) near Aiken, South Carolina.&nbsp; The 3013 containers are packaged in 9975 shipping packages which are palletized for long term storage.&nbsp; The triple nested 3013 containers are each made of stainless steel.&nbsp; The outermost 3013 container is designed to the ASME BPV Code with a 699 psig design pressure and utilizes a welded closure.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Pressurized release of radioactive materials, such as plutonium bearing oxides, could occur during a fire accident event where a robust container holding the radioactive materials ruptures catastrophically due to excessive pressurization.&nbsp; The common source of pressurization is the vaporization of water adsorbed onto the actinide oxides. &nbsp;A simple theoretical approach based upon NUREG/CR-6410 is presented which allows calculation of airborne release fractions for pressures up to and above 500 psig.&nbsp; A parametric study is used to determine the level of bias (conservative or non-conservative) when the approach is applied to DOE-STD-3013 welded stainless steel containers which are used to store plutonium bearing oxides at the US Department of Energy Savannah River Site.&nbsp; The event considered is a 3013 container subjected to a hypothesized facility fire where the container fails catastrophically and ruptures resulting in a vented high pressure release of the plutonium bearing oxide materials. The parametric study shows that the simple method for calculating airborne release fractions is biased high by about 45% compared with the detailed approach of NUREG/CR-6410 when used to quantify the amount of material released from a 3013 container rupture.</p>

A Simple Method to Estimate Airborne Release Fractions Associated With the Pressurized Release of Radioactive Materials

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/PVP/PVP2021/volume/85314

ASME 2021 Pressure Vessels & Piping Conference (PVP2021)

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