Proposed Regulations to Ship Large Objects as Surface Contaminated Objects

It is proposed for this review cycle of the IAEA Transport Regulations (SSR-6) to incorporate regulations for the shipment of large objects as a new category of surface contaminated object (SCO). The proposal to include the transport of large objects within the regulations has been in development for many years. The progression of the discussion and the details of the final proposed changes are discussed in this paper, including how concerns raised at recent TRANSSC and working group meetings have been considered and addressed.In many cases, large objects can be classified as SCO, but because of their size do not meet all of the packaging requirements for transport, even though they do not pose a transport risk. As a result, a set of standard provisions for transport of large objects as surface contaminated objects under a new SCO-III classification, based on the IAEA “performance package” concept, have been developed for possible incorporation into the international regulations and advisory material.The primary additions to SSR-6 are related to the SCO-III classification and requirements, as well as approval and administrative requirements for the new classification. In addition, SCO-III was added to the proper shipping name for UN 2913 and the conveyance limits have been revised for SCO-III. Advisory material was also drafted for the new requirements. The majority of this advisory material is based on the information that is currently found in Appendix VII of SSG-26 [2] for large objects. The information was moved into the body of SSG-26 to support the regulations and removed from Appendix VII.Note that at this time the proposed provisions do not include components such as reactor vessels, due to the more limited experience and greater radioactivity levels. The SCO-III concept lays the groundwork and may be extended to low specific activity (LSA) large object provisions in the future to cover such components.