RADShip: A Tool for CERN Shipments of Radioactive Material

At CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), physicists and engineers are researching the fundamental structure of the universe. They use the world's largest and most complex scientific instruments - particle accelerators and detectors - to study the basic constituents of matter: the fundamental particles. The particles are made to collide at velocities close to the speed of light. This process provides the physicists with evidence about how the particles interact and provides an insight into the fundamental laws of nature. The operation of high-energy accelerators unavoidably leads to the production of radioactive material, ranging from small electronic cards to large accelerator components. At one point this material will have to be shipped outside CERN. At present, more than 300 institutes worldwide have been involved in shipping radioactive material with CERN. A database and web interface, RADShip, was specifically designed and developed in order to guarantee a high level of safety for such shipments, to ensure their complete traceability and meet the special needs of the Organization. This paper covers the functionalities of the database and presents the user statistics for the last 5 years, including the daily activities such as classification, packaging, and shipment. The tool, which is used for both export and import, also manages the institutes’ acceptance requests and Dangerous Goods Declarations with a number of automatic notifications. Special system checks are used to keep track of the packages’ certificates and the validity of the staff’s training.