Transport of Small Quantities of Irradiated Materials: Flying Pig Concept Update

Over the past years, the demand for a cost-effective and flexible solution to transport small quantities of irradiated material for research purposes has been continuously increasing. However, there was no small and low cost transport solution available on the market to carry out this task.In this context, a specific Working Group through the organization HOTLAB(1) with different international laboratories, was created to investigate such transport challenges and to develop specifications for a new transport cask. Taking into account prior experiences and feedback of existing casks on the market, the Working Group was able to define the main principles of a new cask optimized for hot lab needs.Hence, the Flying Pig project was initiated by some of the HOTLAB members and AREVA TN.The purpose of this article is to share the work accomplished since 2009 by AREVA TN on a new air type B(U) cask: the “Flying Pig.” The main goal of this cask is to transport small quantities of irradiated material between hot labs all over the world.The article will focus on the most important characteristics of this B(U) cask such astransport means allowed, operability, contents allowed, dimensions and mass... The main milestones to come will be presented.