Survey Requirements of Transport and Storage Casks Manufacturing for Interim Storage in Switzerland

This paper provides an overview of the survey requirements of the Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate, ENSI, to the manufacturers and associated subcontractors of Transport and Storage Casks for Interim Storage in Switzerland.In accordance with the Regulatory Guideline for Swiss Nuclear Installations, ref. ENSI-G05, the manufacturing of the Transport and Storage Casks shall be surveyed by a third-party organisation. On behalf of ENSI, the Nuclear Inspectorate of Swiss Association for Technical Inspections (SVTI-N) is in charge of supervising the manufacturing of the Transport and Storage Casks for the Interim Storage in Switzerland.Besides the supervision of the actual manufacturing process including numerous testing operations and - in case of detected non-conformances or required derogations - the review of deviation treatment forms, SVTI’s supervision activities take place at various points before, during and after manufacturing. This includes a review of the documents regarding the production processes and the necessary qualifications as well as the manufacturing. Even after completion of the actual manufacturing process, the check of the QA lifetime records and quality control of the documentation at the subcontractor and manufacturer sites form an important part of the SVTI’s work. Since the cask assembly and the manufacturing of the cask components are done in diverse regions of the world, it is favourable, that the manufacturers and subcontractors are familiar with the survey requirements of the Swiss Authorities. That way, the manufacturers and subcontractors can implement from the beginning on the measures to comply with these requirements. Therefore, the associated financial burden can be considered and also the delays on the delivery of the casks can be avoided.