Lessons Learned During Type-A Packaging Testing·

For the past 6 years, the U.S. Deparonent of Energy (DOE), Office of Facility Safety Analysis (EH-32) has contracted Westinghouse Hanford Company (WHC) to conduct compliance testing on DOE Type A packagings. The packagings are tested for compliance with the U.S. Deparunent of Transportation (DOT) Specification ?A, gener.:tl packaging, Type A requirements. The DOE has shared the Type A packaging information throughout the nuclear materials transportation community. During testing, there have been recurring areas of packaging design that resulted in testing delays and/or initial failure. The lessons learned during the testing are considered a valuable resource. DOE requested that WHC share thLo; resource. By sharing what is and can be encountered during packaging testing, individuals will hopefully avoid past mistakes. The majority of the testing delays are typically due to documentation problems in the areas of contiguration control and material acceptability. Delays also result due to design problems in the containment and shielding areas. ldentitication of these problem areas has resulted in changes in the actions taken before and during testing. A significant before-test change has been made in obtaining and reviewing information from the test sponsor. A checklist has been developed that identifies the requirements and requests information on how the requirements are met by the design. The test facility organization requests that test sponsors supply the checklist information hefore packagings are accepted for testing. This paper discusses the most common problem areas identified through use of the checklist. Suggestions on how to improve the packaging and how to avoid repeating those mistakes are provided. Besides identifying design problems, the checklist helps to reduce problems encountered during testing.