Simulation of cooling and solidification of three-dimensional bulk borosilicate glass: effect of structural relaxations
Résumé
The modeling of the viscoelastic stress evolution and specific volume relaxation of a bulky glass cast is presented in this article and is applied to the experimental cooling process of an inactive nuclear waste vitrification process. The concerned borosilicate glass is solidified and cooled down to ambient temperature in a stainless steel canister, and the thermomechanical response of the package is simulated. There exists a deviant compression of the liquid core due to the large glass package compared to standard tempered glass plates. The stress load development of the glass cast is finally studied for different thermal load scenarios, where the cooling process parameters or the final cooldown rates were changed, and we found a great influence of the studied cooldown rates on the maximum stress buildup at ambient temperature.