DEVELOPMENT AND CERTIFICATION OF A CAPSULE FOR SEALED SOURCE ENCAPSULATION (LA-UR-07-6980)

The OSR Project has developed a sealed source encapsulation to provide a method to assure US DOT special form containment of radioactive sealed sources during transport. This encapsulation is called the LANL Special Form Capsule (SFC). The capsule was designed to meet both project specific design requirements and the testing requirements specified in the Code of Federal Regulations 49 CFR 173.4691 . A key feature of the SFC was that it could be easily assembled in the field. Its development expanded the projects capabilities to efficiently transport and store sealed sources. Sealed sources that are special form can be shipped using US DOT 7A, Type A packages, which provide for increased flexibility in shipping. We describe the development of the special form capsule, the in-house testing as well as the independent laboratory testing performed to certify the container. Quality assurance issues associated with the fabrication and the assembly will also be discussed. The special form container is available in three sizes referred to as the Model I, II, and III. Each container utilizes the same sealing concept. The capsule is selected to optimize the payload volume.