Developing a new generation of casks for OCRWM

Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) of 1982 and its 1987 amendment, the US Department of Energy (DOE) has been assigned the responsibility to develop a Federal Waste Management System (FWMS) for permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste. The Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) was established within DOE to carry out this responsibility. One of the important components of a FWMS is the transportation system that will be used to transport the spent fuel and high-level nuclear waste from reactors and other storage sites to a monitored retrievable storage (MRS) facility and a repository. General Atomics is developing two dedicated LWT cask designs, one for shipment of pressurized water reactor (PWR) spent fuel and the other for boiling water reactor (BWR) spent fuel. The GA-4 is being designed to carry four PWR spent-fuel assemblies, and GA-9 is being designed to carry nine BWR spent-fuel assemblies. Both designs are very similar and differ only to accommodate different fuel geometries and their somewhat different radiation spectra. As a part of the design package, GA is developing a special semitrailer that will satisfy the 4-t weight limit for the semitrailer