Packaging Certification

The mission of the Packaging Certification Program (PCP) of DOE’s Office of Packaging and Transportation, Environmental Management (EM-63) is to ensure the safety of packagings for radioactive and fissile materials and support vital DOE missions across the DOE Complex, as well as EM 's risk reduction, clean up and site closure activities. For a description of PCP, see Success Stories, Challenges, and Strategic Directions.

Since 1986, Argonne National Laboratory has provided DOE with an independent review and evaluation of the information contained in the Safety Analysis Reports for Packaging (SARP), which describe the packaging used to transport radioactive materials. The review is conducted to apprise DOE of the ability of the packaging to meet all DOE orders and federal regulations for safe transport. The process ensures that a consistent and independent review is performed, while maintaining the authority granted to DOE by the U.S. Department of Transportation for packaging evaluation and certification. The Argonne SARP Review Group operates independently of other programs and comprises staff who have the knowledge and experience necessary to perform in-depth review and confirmatory evaluation of the entire range of information in the SARP—a voluminous document consisting of nine chapters: General Information and Drawings, Structural, Thermal, Containment, Shielding, Criticality, Operating Procedures, Acceptance Tests and Maintenance, and Quality Assurance. Together, these chapters should provide technical evidence demonstrating that radioactive material packaging meets all applicable safety standards and federal regulations. The primary goal of the Argonne review is to verify and ensure that the packaging will perform as intended under both normal conditions of transport and during hypothetical accidents.

These transport conditions are detailed in the regulations contained in Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 71, "Packaging and Transportation of Radioactive Material." The regulations contain specific environmental and mechanical loading conditions that the package must accommodate during transport, as illustrated in the schematic diagram (above left); the train derailment inside the Baltimore Tunnel in 2001 (above right) involved the same accident sequence but did not involve any radioactive material packages.

Over the years, the Argonne SARP Review Group has reviewed many SARPs for various fissile and radioactive material contents, including uranium, plutonium, source capsules, fuel elements, and waste. In addition to reviewing these documents, the Argonne SARP Review Group also supports DOE in the areas of packaging quality assurance audits, training, and other technical assistance, as required. The group presents two annual training courses: “Quality Assurance for Radioactive Material Packaging” and “Application of the ASME Code to Radioactive Material Transportation Packaging.”

For more information, contact:
Yung Liu
Packaging Certification and Life-cycle Management
Decision and Information Sciences Division
Argonne National Laboratory
9700 South Cass Ave., Bldg. 900
Argonne, IL, 60439
Phone: 630-252-5127
Fax: 630-252-5715
E-mail Yung Liu