THE EUROPEAN TECHNICAL GUIDE ON PACKAGE DESIGN SAFETY REPORTS FOR TRANSPORT PACKAGES CONTAINING RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL

For each design of a package for the transport of radioactive material it is necessary to demonstrate compliance with national and international transport regulations as applicable. It is recommended to combine all information necessary to demonstrate compliance in a package design safety report. The European Technical Guide is intended to assist in the preparation of such a package design safety report for use in all European countries. The development of this guide has been initiated and supported by the European Commission (EC) to improve harmonization in this field in Europe. The work started in 2005 based on various national guidelines available in some European countries. Since that time the draft of the guide has been produced with inputs from Belgium, France, Germany, Spain, UK, WNTI and AREVA and preliminary results have been also presented to the Standing Working Group on Radioactive Material Transport of the EC. The paper describes the scope, structure and contents of the draft of the Technical Guide. The guide is based on the IAEA TS-R-1 Regulations which are generally consistent with the regulations for the road, rail, sea, inland waterways and air modes of transport, namely ADR, RID, IMDG code, ADN and ICAO respectively which have to be applied in European countries. The guide is applicable to all types of packages. It proposes a structure and a minimum contents for the safety report to assist the applicant in case of a package design subject to competent authority approval and the package designer in case of a package not requiring competent authority approval in demonstrating compliance with the provisions of TS-R-1 applicable to the respective package type. The guide includes also a matrix of paragraph numbers of IAEA TS-R-1 and modal regulations applicable to each package type to support demonstration of compliance with all regulatory requirements that have to be addressed for each package type. It is intended in the further development of the guide to provide the results also to IAEA to support worldwide harmonization in this matter.