ONSITE TRANSPORT REGULATIONS: HOW TO ADAPT INTERNATIONAL REGULATIONS

Onsite transports of radioactive materials are usually performed using specific rules approved site by site by the competent authority. They are necessary to transfer radioactive materials from one building to another during the different phases of a transformation process. The French competent authorities have asked the largest nuclear operators in France to set up a working group in charge of writing draft regulations to be approved by the regulators before coming into force on the different French nuclear sites: RTIR (Regulations for onsite transportat of radioactive materials). The transport being performed onsite, it is easier to characterize the different transport conditions according to the usual categories: Routines conditions Transports are no longer than a few kilometres. It is therefore easier for the driver to acquire a good knowledge of the path. This enables also to easily guarantee, except for potential very sudden storm or hail storm, the weather and traffic conditions during the transport. It is also possible to identify all possible hazards, including co-activity and traffic along the path. As concerns radiation protection and contamination, the exposure for public (visitors) is limited in time and minimized by the fact that people are well aware of the risks when visiting a nuclear site. Thus, the operator can precisely define the conditions of performance of the transport. This leads to introduce in the regulations the possibility to exempt the package designs from non relevant testing, or to limit the number of prescriptions for the transport. Incident and accident conditions On each nuclear site, health physics specialists are available with a good knowledge of the specific hazards inherent to the materials transported. Thus, in case of incident or accident, those specialists are available to rapidly make a diagnosis and take all relevant measures to limit the possible consequences. Thus specific rules can be established for the design of the packaging as well as for operational conditions of transport.