A Status Report on the Development and Certification of the Beneficial Uses Shipping System (BUSS) Cask

In the early 1980s, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) implemented a program to encourage beneficial uses of nuclear byproduct materials, such as cesium-137 and strontium-90, created during the production of defense materials. Potential uses of the cesium-13 7 ( 137 Cs) isotope included sterilizing medical products, maintaining the quality of certain food products, and disinfecting municipal sewage sludge. Strontium-90 ( 90Sr) is a good heat source and has been used in thermoelectric generators and other products that require a constant supply of heat. During that same period, a proposed facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was designed to use cesium-137 to sterilize sewage sludge. To support the sewage sludge treatment facility, Sandia National Laboratories was funded by the DOE to develop a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)-certified Type B shipping container to transport cesium chloride (CsCI) or strontium fluoride (SrF2) capsules produced by the Hanford Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility (WESF) in the State of Washington. The primary purpose of the Beneficial Uses Shipping System (BUSS) cask is to provide shielding and confinement, as well as impact, puncture, and thermal protection for certified, special form contents during transport under normal and hypothetical accident conditions. The BUSS cask was designed to meet dimensional and weight constraints of the WESF and user facilities. Attaining as-low-as-reasonablyachievable (ALARA) radiation exposures in the design and operation ofthe transport system was a major design goal. Another goal was to obtain regulatory approval of the design by preparing a safety analysis report for packaging (SARP) (Yoshimura et al. 1993).