Thermal measurements of a rail-cask-size pipe-calorimeter in jet fuel fires

Abstract

Three large-scale fire tests were conducted in which a 2.4-m-(8-ft)-dia., 4.6-m-(15-ft)-long, 25-mm-(1-inch)-wall-thickness mild-steel pipe calorimeter was centered 1 m above a 7.9-m-dia. basin containing 7.57 m³ (2000 gal) of jet fuel. The wind conditions, calorimeter wall temperatures, and temperatures of foil radiant heat flux gages near the calorimeter were measured at several locations as functions of time during and after the fires. Video and still photography from several directions were used to monitor the calorimeter’s engulfment in flames. The objective of these tests was to determine how the fuel consumption rate, calorimeter coverage in flames and the calorimeter temperatures varied with wind conditions. These data can be used to benchmark computational and engineering models of heat transfer from large pool fires to thermally-massive objects. Those types of models are used to predict the response of rail-car-sized used-nuclear-fuel transport packages in severe accidents. The first two tests had average wind speeds of about 1 m/s and lasted for roughly 40 min. The third had 3-m/s winds and consumed the fuel in only 25 min. When winds blew toward a side or end of the calorimeter, the flames became thin and the radiant heat flux gage temperatures measured near those regions decreased. In the lower wind-speed tests, the calorimeter was more completely engulfed in flames and its temperatures were more uniform and reached higher average values compared to the high wind-speed test.

Keywords

Pool fire heat transfer experiment nuclear fuel transport safety

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Packaging and transportation of radioactive material. Code of Federal Regulations, 10 CFR 71, Washington, DC, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 2009.

Fischer LE, Chou CK, Gerhard MA, et al. Shipping container response to severe highway and railway accident conditions. NUREG/CR-4829, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA, 1987.

Sprung JL, Ammerman DJ, Breivik NL, et al. Reexamination of spent fuel shipment risk estimates. NUREG/CR-6672, Vol. 1 (SAND2000-0234), Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, 2000.

ASTM E 2230. Standard practice for thermal qualification of type b packages for radioactive material, West Conshohoken, PA: ASTM International, 2008.

GA-4 Legal weight truck from-reactor spent fuel shipping cask, safety analysis report for packaging (SARP), General Atomics, San Diego, 1998.

Spinti

Thornock

Eddings

. Heat transfer to objects in pool fires. In: Faghri M and Senden B (eds) Transport phenomena in fires, Southampton, UK: WIT Press, 2008, pp. 69–136.

Suo-Anttila A, Lopez C and Khalil I. User’s manual for CAFE-3D: A Computational Fluid Dynamics Fire Code. Report, SAND2005-1469, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, 2005.

del Valle MA, Kramer MA, Lopez, et al. Temperature response of a rail-cask-size pipe calorimeter in large-scale pool fires. In: Proceedings of the 15th international symposium on the packaging and transportation of radioactive materials (PATRAM), Institute of Nuclear Materials Management, Deerfield, IL USA, 21–26 October 2007.

Kramer

Greiner

Koski

. Measurements of heat transfer to a massive cylindrical object engulfed in a circular pool fire. J Heat Transfer 2003; 125: 110–118.

10.

Blanchat TK, Nicolette VF, Sundberg WD, et al. Well-characterized open pool experiment data and analysis for model validation and development. Report SAND2006-7508, Unlimited Release, Sandia National Laboratory, Albuquerque, 2006.

11.

Figueroa VG and Lopez C. 8ft diameter calorimeter fire test series. Report SAND 2011-8349, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, 2011.

12.

Hogan BC, Bocanegra H, Alarcon RC, et al. Examination of the bi-directional velocity probe use in flames. In: Proceedings of the ASME 2009 fluids engineering division summer meeting, August 2--6, Vail Colorado, 2009, pp.49–56.

13.

Blanchat

Humphries

Gill

Sandia heat flux gauge thermal response and uncertainty models. In: Gritzo

Alvarez

(eds). Thermal measurements: the foundation of fire standards, ASTM STP 1427, West Conshohocken, PA: ASTM International, 2002.

14.

Blackwell BF, Douglass RW and Wolf H. A user’s manual for the Sandia one-dimensional direct and inverse thermal (SODDIT) Code. Report SAND85-2478, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, 1987, pp.136.

15.

Bullard T and Greiner M. Calibration of the Sandia one-dimensional direct and inverse thermal (SODDIT) code for estimating heat flux to a large pipe calorimeter in a jet fuel fire. In: ASME 2009 Summer Heat Transfer Conference, collocated with the InterPACK09 and 3rd Energy Sustainability Conferences, San Francisco, 19–23 July 2009, paper no. HT2009-88521.

16.

Brown A and Blanchat TK. A validation quality heat flux dataset for large pool fires. In: Proceedings of ASME Summer Heat Transfer Conference, July 21–23, Las Vegas, Nevada, 2003.

17.

Randsalu EJ, Lam CS, Weckman EJ, et al. Measurement of fuel regression rates in a jet fuel pool fire in crosswind. In: Proceedings of the 2004 ASME heat transfer/fluids engineering summer conference, Charlotte, NC, USA, 11–15 July 2004, paper no. HT-FED2004-56888, pp.207–211.