Successful licensing of the new DN30 package for the transport of UF6 and first impressions from its use

The DN30 package was developed by DAHER NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGIES GmbH (DAHER NT) for the transport of enriched commercial grade and reprocessed UF6 up to an enrichment of 5 %. It consists of a standard 30B cylinder and the DN30 Protective Structural Packaging (PSP). The design and several aspects of the licensing process were already presented at previous PATRAM conventions.Licensing took overall a time period of around ten years. Several drop test campaigns and fire tests with 1:1 scale prototypes took place at the German BAM facility. Several, sometimes unexpected, optimizations of the design of the packaging were required to achieve in the end very positive results.The complete PDSR comprising very extensive FEM simulations of the tests was submitted to the French competent authority at the end of 2016. After several rounds of questions/answers and revisions of the PDSR, the final meeting with the permanent expert group to get a “go” took place at the end of 2018. The DN30 package was then licensed in France as a type AF, IF and B(U)F package in December 2018. Subsequently, validations in all relevant countries were applied for, such as Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK, Russia and the USA (DOT).Mid of 2018 we also applied for the NRC certificate of approval as a type AF package with the goal of having the certificate available mid-2019.For the serial manufacturing process, we will take into account the experience we gained from manufacturing the prototypes used for testing. The first batches of DN30 PSPs should be available before the PATRAM convention. Hence, we will be able to share with you some first impressions from the first use and transport of UF6 with this new package.The paper will give an overview first about the ten-year successful licensing process in France, second about the considerably shorter licensing process in the USA, and will then concentrate on serial manufacturing and first practical experiences with the new DN30 PSPs.