International Conference on the Safe and Secure Transport of Nuclear and Radioactive Material

Class 7 Box: Standardized Packaging to Address Denials and Delays

Not scheduled

20m

Vienna

ORAL Track 3 Safety and Security during Transport Operations

Speaker

Frank Koch (Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspecorate ENSI)

Description

Swiss competent authorities (Swiss CA) were approached by consignors reporting more and more difficulties with the transport of excepted packages (EP). Swiss CA have initiated an analysis of the situation inviting relevant carriers such as postal operator, national airline, and parcel services. Carriers confirmed the difficulties reported by the consignors. Carriers have provided reasons for the non-acceptance of class 7 packages or the acceptance only under very specific conditions. As a result, small quantities of radioactive materials for medicine, industry and research cannot be transported efficiently.
Following the analysis of carrier responses, consignors supported by the Swiss CA started the development of a standardized EP to address variety of EP, training effort for limited number of transported EP, and operators risk perception. The development results in a packaging concept called “class 7 box” (working title) providing a standardised transport solution with improved safety features compared to existing EPs, a clearly understandable packing concept and standardised training and emergency instructions.
The “class 7 box” concept was originally proposed for the last review and revision cycle of SSR-6 (Rev. 1). Due to marking and labelling issues, the adoption of UN concepts such as packing groups (PG) and excepted quantities (EQ), as well as the resulting potential competition with the current EP, the concept could not be included in the revised SSR-6. Nevertheless, the transport community has acknowledged the benefit to have a standardised packaging solution. Hence, the concept is foreseen to be proposed for an ISO standard as a standardised EP only to avoid the conflicts identified during the last SSR-6 review and revision cycle.
The paper provides reasons for denials and delays of EP in the international transport of radioactive materials for medicine, industry, and research. A potential solution is presented in detail: the “class 7 box” as a standardised EP. Follow-up activities such as a proposal to standardize “class 7 box” for an ISO standard will be also presented.