TRANSPORT OF LARGE COMPONENTS IN GERMANY – SOME EXPERIENCES AND REGULATORY ASPECTS

After decommissioning of nuclear facilities it is very often necessary to transport large components such as steam generators or reactor pressure vessels in public areas. In Germany, such shipments were carried out in 2007 and 2008 as follows: - steam generators from the Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) Stade to Studsvik/Sweden by road and sea - reactor pressure vessel from NPP Rheinsberg to the interim storage facility near Greifswald by railway and - steam generators from the NPP Obrigheim to Greifswald as well by road and inland waterway. The paper describes the experiences with these shipments including radiation dose assessments to transport workers as well as the main aspects of the applied regulatory procedure by special arrangement, for which the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) is the competent authority in Germany. A high level of safety could be achieved for all involved modes of transport (road, rail, sea and inland waterways). Based on these experiences some regulatory aspects will be discussed finally which include classification issues of large components within the current IAEA Transport Regulations, the safety concept and the use of special arrangements for such shipments and options for the further development of the IAEA Transport Regulations to achieve more specific and internationally harmonized conditions or requirements for shipments of large components.