Response of nuclear materials in storage and transport to malevolent environments

Abstract

Work related to the assessment of radiological health consequences resulting from a sabotage attack on nuclear fuel storage or transport casks has been continuing since the late 1970s. While the level of effort in this area has been uneven over these three decades due to policy priorities, funding levels and programmatic priorities of the countries funding this type of work, substantial progress has been made. From phenomenology of in cask transport processes to development of aerosol production in high energy attack environments, the analytical and experimental work performed provides substantial justification to consequence assessments that heretofore have had to rely on conservative assumptions in lieu of empirical data. One constant since the late 1990s in addressing this problem has been an international working group whose primary focus has been to develop source term data from experimental simulations of sabotage types of attacks. This working group, titled the International Working Group for Sabotage Concerns of Transport and Storage Casks (WGSTSC) is comprised of experts mainly from the USA, France and Germany. Technical support has also been provided, on an intermittent basis, from the UK and Japan. The WGSTSC has pooled resources and expertise to design and conduct experiments to produce the data needed to perform radiological consequence assessments. In addition to the experimental programme, this group also has coupled modern analytical techniques with experimental results to understand the effects of high energy density devices on nuclear materials. This paper reviews the paradigm that has guided the WGSTSC effort and shows how the results from the experimental programmes of the past three decades have brought us to the current level of understanding of the potential consequences from a malevolent attack on nuclear transport and storage facilities. In addition, the paper provides an update on the status of the work of the WGSTSC and describes what additional experimental and analytical efforts would be most productive in further narrowing of uncertainty in consequence prediction.

Keywords:

• spent fuel
• sabotage security
• release fraction
• aerosolization