Investigation of seal effects according to axial compression variation of metal seals for transport and storage casks

Abstract Casks for the transport and storage of heat generating radioactive waste in Germany are normally provided with screwed lid systems, which are in most cases equipped with double jacket metal seals with an inner spring wire to provide long term resistance to the seal compression force. Preservation of the high sealing quality of those seals under operational and accidental stress conditions is essentially important to the safety of those casks. Relative displacements of the lid system surfaces caused by specific impact scenarios cannot be excluded and have to be evaluated with respect to a possible increase in the leakage rate. To get representative data for such metal sealed lid systems, BAM has developed a special conceptualised flange system placed in an appropriate testing machine for relevant mechanical loading of the metal seals under static and cyclic conditions. Furthermore, the flange system enables continuous measurement of the standard helium leakage rate during each test. The primary aim of the investigation is to identify the correlation between variation of installation conditions (axial displacements) caused by external loads and the standard helium leakage rate. An essential parameter in this case is the useable resilience ru of a metal seal under relevant stress conditions. The useable resilience ru is the vertical difference in the cross-section between the seal's assembling status and the point where the leakage rate, by means of external load relieving, exceeds the quality criterion of 10–8 Pa m3 s–1. Load relieving can instantly occur due to modification of the seal groove dimension caused by accident impacts and deformation of the lid system. Furthermore, component specific basis data for the development of finite element calculation models should be collected. In the tests, seals are subjected to static and cyclic loads. All tests are performed at ambient temperature. This paper presents the test configuration, different test series and results of the current experiments. Typical load–displacement–leakage rate correlations are presented and discussed.