Thermomechanical Finite-element Analyses Of Bolted Cask Lid Structures

Abstract

Analysis of complex bolted cask lid structures under mechanical or thermal accident conditions is important for the evaluation of cask integrity and leak tightness in package design assessment according to the transport regulations or in aircraft crash scenarios. In this context BAM is developing methods based on finite elements (FE) to calculate the effects of mechanical impacts onto the bolted lid structures as well as effects caused by severe fire scenarios. In the case of fire it might not be enough to perform only a thermal heat transfer analysis. A complex cask design together with a severe hypothetical time–temperature curve representing an accident fire scenario will create a strong transient heating up of the cask body and its lid system. This causes relative displacements between the seals and their counterparts that can be analysed by a so-called thermomechanical calculation. Although it is currently not possible to directly correlate leakage rates with results from deformation analyses, an appropriate finite element model of the considered type of metallic lid seal has been developed. For the present it is possible to estimate the behaviour of the seal based on the calculated relative displacements at its seating and the behaviour of the lid bolts under the impact load or the temperature field, respectively. Except for the lid bolts, the geometry of the cask and the mechanical loading is axisymmetric which simplifies the analysis considerably, and a two-dimensional finite-element model with substitute lid bolts may be used. The substitute bolts are modelled as one-dimensional truss or beam elements. An advanced two-dimensional bolt submodel represents the bolts with plane stress continuum elements. This paper discusses the influence of different bolt modellings on the relative displacements at the seating of the seals. The influence of bolt modelling, thermal properties and the detailed geometry of the two-dimensional finite-element models on the results are discussed.