Quality Assurance on DCI Transport/STorage Casks for Radioactive Material

The Gesellschaft fur Nuklear-Service (GNS), owned by German utilities, is responsible, on their behalf, for the management of spent fuel and radioactive waste, resulting from the operation of their nuclear power plants. The company's other responsibilities include the development, design and fabrication of the transport and storage casks thus required. Questions of quality assurance obviously play an important part here. Using the example of a spent fuel cask of the CASTOR family, the performance of quality assurance measures is explained. These start with the company's quality assurance system and include control activities during design and fabrication. In accordance with German regulations, fabrication and test sequences plans are used, which determine the inclusion of all parties involved at the time required. The interplay of different review authorities is being illustrated.