Report on the testing of Raschig Rings

Raschig Rings are hollow glass cylinders made from Pyrex glass. They are used in containers for the storage of liquid radioactive waste, and perform two useful functions. The boron content of the glass helps to absorb neutrons from the waste. The volume of the glass rings helps to reduce the local density of the liquid waste and avoid potential criticality problems. Mechanical tests have been performed on such rings in earlier years, involving some nine different styles of testing. The present work was performed in order to compare the strength of fresh, unexposed rings with rings that had been used in various waste storage containers. In all, ten batches of rings were tested, one batch of unexposed rings and nine batches of exposed rings. The following sections describe the test procedures and the results that were obtained. An appendix contains a series of photographs of the different test methods, and sample failure appearances