ASN Report 2018

4 —  ASN action in the transport of radioactive substances 4.1  ̶  Issuance of approval certificates and shipment approvals The type B and C packages, as well as the packages containing fissile materials and those containing more than 0.1 kg of UF 6 must be covered by an ASN transport approval. The designers of the package models who request approval from ASN must support their application with a safety case demonstrating the compliance of their package with all the regulatory requirements. Before deciding whether or not to issue approval, ASN reviews these safety cases, drawing on the expertise of IRSN, in order to ensure that the safety cases are pertinent and conclusive. If necessary, the approval is issued with requests in order to further improve the safety cases. In some cases the IRSN appraisal is supplemented by a meeting of the ASN Advisory Committee for Transports (GPT). The opinions of the Advisory Committees are always published on asn.fr . The GPT met on 8 November 2018 to examine the safety of the new DN 30 package model developed by the DAHER NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGIES GmbH company for the transport of uranium hexafluoride (UF 6 ), enriched to 5% with 235 U, obtained from natural uranium or reprocessed uranium, between the uranium enrichment plants and the nuclear fuel fabrication plants. The DN 30 is a new overpack containing a 30B cylinder filled with enriched UF 6 , providing mechanical and thermal protection during the regulation tests. The design of the DN 30 significantly improves safety with respect to existing 30B cylinder overpacks which have been on the market for decades. The approval certificate specifies the conditions for the manufacture, utilisation and maintenance of the transport package. It is issued for a package model, independently of the actual shipment itself, for which no prior ASN opinion is generally required. This shipment may however be subject to restrictions or specific conditions for security reasons (physical protection of the materials against malicious acts under the supervision of the HFDS of the Ministry for the Environment). These approval certificates are usually issued for a period of five years. If a package is unable to meet all the regulatory requirements, the regulations nonetheless allow for its transport by means of a shipment under special arrangement. The consignor must then define compensatory measures to ensure a level of safety equivalent to that which would have been obtained had the regulatory requirements been met. For example, if it cannot be completely demonstrated that a package is able to withstand the 9-metre drop, a compensatory measure may be to reduce the speed of the vehicle and have it escorted. The probability of a serious accident (and thus of a violent shock on the package) is thus considerably reduced. A shipment under special arrangement is only possible with the approval of the competent authority, which then issues approval for shipment under special arrangement, stipulating the compensatory measures to be applied. In the case of certificates issued abroad, the international regulations provide for their recognition by ASN. In certain cases, this recognition is automatic and the foreign certificate is directly valid in France. In other cases, the foreign certificate is only valid if validated by ASN, which then issues a new certificate. In 2018, 50 approval applications were submitted to ASN by the manufacturers. ASN delivered 37 approval certificates or shipment approvals, for which the breakdown by type is shown in Graph 2. The nature of the transport operations and packages concerned by these certificates is shown in Graph 3. In 2018, TN International began development work on a new packaging designed for exclusive land and sea transport of spent fuel assemblies, as well as for their interim storage. In 2019, ASN will give conclude its review of the safety options for this new package model, in the light of the new provisions of the 2018 edition of IAEA’s SSR-6 regulations. Upper half-shell Lower half-shell 30B cylinder Handling lugs Handling lugs Fuses Valve protection device Fork slot Closure system New DN 30 packaging 266  ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2018 09 – TRANSPORT OF RADIOACTIVE SUBSTANCES