IAEA Transport Regulations - What Has Changed in the Last Two Decades

The IAEA Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Materials were first published in 1961, and since then revised roughly decennially. After the publication of the 1996 Edition, the Regulations had been reviewed biennially and revised in 2 to 4 years intervals, i.e., in 2000, 2003, 2005, 2009 and 2012. During this period, continuous deliberation for improvement was made to result following typical changes to be incorporated in these Editions:- Clarification or change of definitions (modification of requirements, quality assurance to management system);- Update of the General Provisions (Section III);- Incorporation of requirements for excepted package containing uranium hexafluoride (UN 3507);- Further enhancement of consistency to the transport modal regulations (e.g., the definition of freight container);- Reconstruction of provisions for the fissile excepted material/packages.Above 6 Editions are regarded in the same 1996 Edition family without a need for transitional arrangements, since impacts from these changes to package design or transport operation were considered relatively small.In June 2018, the 2018 Edition of the Regulations was published as the IAEA Safety Standards Series No. SSR-6 (Revision 1), that incorporates some remarkable changes such as:- Introduction of requirements for shipment of SCO-III (large object) including its definition;- Change in terminology (radiation level ? dose rate, marking vs mark, etc.);- Addition of emergency response to the objective of the Regulations;- Introduction of a concept of shipment after storage;- Consideration of ageing mechanism in package design;- Deletion of the leaching test requirement for LSA-III material;- Inclusion of the plug in the assessment of an individual package in isolation for the package containing uranium hexafluoride.A set of changes is considered worth to classify the 2018 Edition as a new edition of the Regulations separate from the 1996 Edition family, and consequently, the transitional arrangements for the 1973 Edition are expired, and the ones for the 1996 Edition family are specified.This paper summarizes changes incorporated in each Editions of the Regulations after the1996 Edition up to the 2018 Edition to maintain an audit trail of changes over recent 22 years.