A COMPANY STANDARD FOR STORAGE CONTAINERS

For most organisations that carry out their business in the field of nuclear engineering it is necessary to safely store radioactive material items either before, during or after their production process. Assuming that materials have been delivered/ received in approved transport packaging (most likely meeting IAEA Transport Package standards), the responsibility for safe storage within the company lies with the storage facility managers. Obviously there is national legislation/ regulation in terms of facility or site license conditions and in the UK the Ionising Radiations Regulations that ensure that workers are not exposed to excessive dose in terms of radiation and contamination. This paper describes the evolution of a Storage Design Approval Requirements (DAR) document that was introduced in the 1990’s and is used to set the standards for storage containers on our site. The paper will cover the background to the introduction of the DAR and describe how a risk based approach was adopted with the activity thresholds set for different storage container classes in terms of activity and the forms of materials being stored. The paper will discuss the advantages of implementing the standard and how it has evolved to provide the necessary flexibility to allow legacy/ waste items to be stored as either an interim measure, until further processing can be carried out, or a waste disposal route is developed/ identified.