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Safe transportation of radioactive material using appropriately designed, certified packages ensures protection of the public and environment using rigorous system packaging requirements. This protocol was conducted to determine the effects of drop testing on a Type B shipping package (DPP-3) performance per normal and hypothetical accident conditions tests. Preparation, testing, and post-test evaluations of a Type B shipping package tested to 10 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 71.71 and 71.73 requirements are presented. Six packages were subjected to free drop, puncture, and thermal tests per 10 CFR 71.73. The posttest helium leak test showed a leak rate < 1 × 10−7 He-cc/sec, indicating that the containment boundary and leak-tight environment were maintained. Statistical analyses were performed to determine changes in package performance. The null hypothesis was that measurements would not change enough from pre- to post-testing to show statistical significance, which would indicate too much variability in package design. A repeated measures t-test was used to analyze drum lid and containment vessel (CV) torques. All six CV lid torques were statistically significant, but only three drum lid torques were statistically significant. Therefore, lid design caused more variability than necessary when subjected to the horizontal-and-cold, vertical-lid-down, and corner-with-lid-up drop tests. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) analyzed package heights and diameters, with results on height indicating four of the six certification test units (CTUs) were statistically significant. Thus, CTU design caused more variability than necessary when subjected to horizontal-hot, horizontal-cold, corner-lid-up, and corner-lid-down tests. One-way ANOVA analysis of diameter indicated that all six CTUs were statistically significant. Thus, CTU design caused more variability than necessary when subjected to all tests. The DPP-3 has been shown to be an acceptable design for transport of radioactive materials, but statistical analysis revealed that package and test design can be improved to reduce variability in performance before and after testing.

This report discusses the initial progress made at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to support direct disposal of dual-purpose canisters (DPCs) using filler materials to demonstrate that the probability of criticality in DPCs during disposal to be below the probability for inclusion in a repository performance assessment. In the initial phase of a multi-phase effort that will result in a full-scale demonstration, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was developed to gauge the filling process and to uncover any unforeseen issues. The initial filling simulations of the lower region (mouse holes) of a prototypic DPC show successful removal of the inner space voids and smooth, even progression of the liquid level. In the initial phase, flow through a pipe that is similar to the drain pipe in a DPC will be investigated separately to gain valuable insight of flow regime inside a pipe. The initial experimental setups for validating the computational filling model have been designed, and the various assembly parts are being procured. The experience gained from the initial experiments will be applied to the next steps toward a full-scale demonstration and to the validation of multiphysics filling simulation models.