SAFETY GUIDE 600—A GUIDE FOR THE TESTING OF SMALL FISSILE MATERIAL PACKAGES

A revision of Safety Guide 600 (SG-600) entitled Regulatory Compliance Testing of NNSA Type B Packages was sponsored by the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Service Center, Package Certification Division (PCD). The NNSA has the authority to certify Type B packages containing materials of national security interest. SG-600 has been thoroughly revised and reissued. This paper reviews the revised Guide and its recommended approach to the testing process. The revised SG-600 addresses the following primary subject areas of the package testing process (1) oversight authority, (2) applicable federal regulations, (3) quality assurance program, (4) test plan, (5) testing, and (6) test report in individual chapters. Since the relationships and interactions among these subject areas are of paramount importance to the testing process, they are presented both graphically and in text in the first chapter of SG-600.