Air Shipment of Spent Nuclear Fuel from Romania to Russia
Romania successfully completed the world’s first air shipment of spent nuclear fuel transported in Type B(U) casks under existing international laws and without shipment license special exceptions when the last Romanian highly enriched uranium (HEU) spent nuclear fuel was transported to the Russian Federation in June 2009. This air shipment required the design, fabrication, and licensing of special 20 foot freight containers and cask tiedown supports to transport the eighteen TUK 19 shipping casks on a Russian commercial cargo aircraft. The new equipment was certified for transport by road, rail, water, and air to provide multi modal transport capabilities for shipping research reactor spent fuel. The equipment design, safety analyses, and fabrication were performed in the Russian Federation and transport licenses were issued by both the Russian and Romanian regulatory authorities. The spent fuel was transported by truck from the VVR S research reactor to the Bucharest airport, flown by commercial cargo aircraft to the airport at Yekaterinburg, Russia, and then transported by truck to the final destination in a secure nuclear facility at Chelyabinsk, Russia. This shipment of 23.7 kg of HEU was coordinated by the Russian Research Reactor Fuel Return Program (RRRFR), as part of the U.S. Department of Energy Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), in close cooperation with the Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation and the International Atomic Energy Agency, and was managed in Romania by the National Commission for Nuclear Activities Control (CNCAN). This paper describes the planning, shipment preparations, equipment design, and license approvals that resulted in the safe and secure air shipment of this spent nuclear fuel.
- Research Organization:
- Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- DOE - NA
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC07-05ID14517
- OSTI ID:
- 1082361
- Report Number(s):
- INL/CON-10-17669
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: PATRAM 2010 - 16th International Symposium on the Packaging and Transport of Radioactive Materials,London, United Kingdom,10/03/2010,10/08/2010
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
Air Shipment
Air shipment of spent nuclear fuel
Global Threat Reduction Initiative
GTRI
HEU
Highly enriched uranium
Research Reactor
Romania
RRRFR
Russian Research Reactor Fuel Return Program
SNF
Spent nuclear fuel
VVR-S research reactor