PACKAGE PERFORMANCE EVALUATION: OUR LATEST 30-YEAR EXPERIENCE

Packages for the transport of radioactive material have to comply with national and / or international regulations. These regulations are widely based on the requirements set forth by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the \"Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material\". The packages designed to transport the most demanding contents are submitted to tests for demonstrating their ability to withstand accident conditions of transport. These tests are typically: ? a nine-meter drop onto a flat and unyielding surface, ? a one-meter drop onto a punch, ? a 800°C / 30 minutes fire, and ? an immersion under a head of water of either 0.9 m, or 15 m or 200 m (depending of the criteria to be considered). During the last 20 years, on several of its package designs, TN International has performed tests and analyses to simulate extremely severe accidents. These tests and analysis include: 1. long duration fire test and deep immersion test on a package designed to transport plutonium oxide powder, 2. deep immersion tests on scale model of packages designed to transport used fuel, high level vitrified waste and fresh MOX (uranium and plutonium mixed oxide) fuel, 3. burial in a soft ground of packages designed to transport used fuel, and 4. numerical study of the thermal behaviour of packages designed to transport used fuel and high level vitrified waste, 5. aircraft crash test on scale models of dual-purpose packages for the transport and storage of used fuel. The paper will: ? review the tests and analysis which were performed, ? show that our designs are able to withstand extremely severe conditions, ? demonstrate that there is no cliff effect: should a failure occurs, it appears gradually and there is no sudden collapse of the package, and ? explain how compliance with all the regulatory requirements lead to high performances regarding each of them (for instance, in many cases, the need to meet radiation exposure criteria induces a mechanical resistance higher than that required to pass the regulatory requirements).