ST ACE: Source Term Analyses for Containment Evaluations of Transport Casks*

The containment requirements for the transportation of radioactive material are defined by both International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) regulations (IAEA 1990; 10 CFR 71). Procedures generally acceptable to the NRC for assessing compliance with these provisions have been identified in Regulatory Guide 7.4 (US NRC 1975). This guide endorses the containment and leak test procedures that are specified in American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Standard Nl4.5 (ANSI 1987). ANSI N14.5 states that \"compliance with package containment requirements shall be demonstrated either by determination of the radioactive contents release rate or by measurement of a tracer material leakage rate.\" The maximum permissible leakage rates from the transport cask L(cm3/s), where i represents either normal (N) or accident (A) conditions of transport, can be determined from the maximum pennissible release rates R (Ci/s) and the time-averaged volumetric concentrations of suspended radioactivity within the cask Ci (Ci/cm3)