COMPLETION OF THE RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS PACKAGING HANDBOOK

The Radioactive Materials Packaging Handbook: Design, Operation and Maintenance~ which will serve as a replacement for the Cask Designers Guide (Shappert, 1970), has now been completed and submitted to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) electronics publishing group for layout and printing; it is scheduled to be printed in late spring 1998. The Handbook, written by experts in their particular fields, is a compilation of technical chapters that address the design aspects of a package intended for transponing radioactive material in normal commerce; it was prepared under the direction of M. E. Wangler of the U.S. Department ofEnergy (DOE;) and is intended to provide a wealth of technical guidance that will give designers a better understanding of the regulatory approval process, preferences of regulators on specific aspects of package design, and the types of analyses that should be considered when designing a package to carry radioactive materials. Even though the Handbook is concerned with both small and large packagings, most of the emphasis is placed on large packagings that are capable oftransponing fissile, radioactive sources (e.g., spent fuel). The safety analysis repons for packagings (SARPs) must address the widest range of technical topics in order to meet United States and/or international regulations, all of which are covered in the Handbook. In the summer of 1996, the final draft of the Handbook was circulated for peer review to all authors and additional independent reviewers. Comments were received and transmitted to the primary author of the appropriate chapter for his evaluation of the suggested changes. Revised chapters were due to the handbook editor in early spring of 1997, although some were not received until late summer. The peer review offered the authors the first opponunity to review their text in light of how other authors had treated the topics contained in their chapters. The following highlights key topics from each of the chapters. One of the primary goals of the Handbook is to provide information which would guide designers of radioactive materials packages to make decisions that would most likely be acceptable to regulatory agencies during the approval process of the packaging. It was therefore imponant to find those authors who not only were expens in one or more of the areas that are addressed in a SARP, but who also had been exposed to the regulatory process or had operational experience dealing with a wide variety of package types. Twenty-five such people have contributed their time and talents to the development of this document, mostly on a volunteer basis. A summary of the chapters and appendixes that they produced is summarized in Table 1.