With the advancing capabilities for fabricating metal components using Additive Manufacturing (AM) (3D-Printing), designers are looking for ways to utilize the AM capabilities in new applications. A potential application for AM is the fabrication of pressure-retaining components or fittings with complex geometries that are difficult to fabricate using traditional methods (e.g., machining and welding). Using AM parts for pressure-retaining components presents new challenges to ensure the material will perform reliably and predictably to meet the specifications of the design. This paper summarizes work performed on 316L stainless steel vessels fabricated by AM. The AM vessels were evaluated before and after Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP) post-processing, including destructive examination to evaluate the grain structure and strength. Tensile tests on baseline samples and samples subjected to HIP were compared to a test sample machined from conventional stainless material and leak tests were performed on an AM vessel using helium as a tracer gas. The role of the HIP post-processing is to reduce the metal porosity and other defects inherent in the 3D-metal printing process. HIP post-processing allows the finished product to achieve the strength, reliability and leak tightness requirements of national consensus standards, such as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code.

As part of regulatory requirements, shipping packages must be able to withstand specified height drop accidents under a worst case orientation and configuration. The burden of justifying worst case orientation and configuration is placed on the package applicant. One of the drop cases to consider is slap-down, where the package is dropped at a shallow angle (eg, nearly horizontal). Due to the shallow angle, the initial impact at one end of the package accelerates the opposite end into the target surface at greater than the net drop velocity. The dynamics of the slap-down condition are modeled using simplified rigid-body dynamics to provide test engineers with a basis for establishing a suitable package content placement that could maximize the slap-down condition.

In general, the design process involves envisioning and developing concepts for a component or system, combining these fractions into an integrated whole and evaluating the final design against functional requirements. A major challenge is developing components or systems to a level of maturity that permits feasibility evaluation of the integrated whole while optimizing opposing performance functions (e.g., thick for strength, but thin for heat transfer). Economic pressure often drives design concepts to conservative bases early in the process. The approach presented in this paper is a highly costeffective means of developing alternative design solutions for given set of design requirements -in this case a radioactive materials (RAM) transportation package.

One of the current missions of the Savannah River Site (SRS) is to provide storage and disposition of DOE excess plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU) materials. Most of the materials to be stored at SRS will be packaged in accordance with DOE-STD-3013. The 3013 containers are removed from the shipping container and stored in racks. There was a concern that the outer 3013 containers could burst during a fire and release the contents in the environment. This paper analyzes the structural integrity of the 3013 outer can under different fire conditions and then determines the limiting fire temperature and its duration for loss of containment. The structural analysis uses a Monte Carlo technique that considers the variance in material strength, material creep properties, failure criteria, and vessel dimensions to calculate the median failure pressures for the different fire temperatures and duration. These failure pressures are compared against the increase in internal pressures as the content temperature rises inside the outer can, yielding failure temperature and duration of the fire conditions.

Band type closure rings are commonly used for securing the drum lid on radioactive material packages of lower weight classifications. Lid installation is achieved by placing the band around the perimeter of the lidded drum and tightening the single bolt in stages until a designated torque value is obtained. The band is subjected to heavy rapping with a soft hammer during installation to equilibrate the band strains around the drum perimeter. The study described here investigated the strain distributions in the band throughout the installation process. The results show that a uniform strain distribution is achieved during installation and that the hammering of the band aids in achieving the uniform distribution. The results of the strain levels after the drop test indicate that the locking rings maintain some pretension, even after severe targeted drops that crush a portion of the drum top.