Use of transportation packaging s as interim storage containers for plutonium

摘要

The end of the Cold War and the new arms agreements are leading to the retirement of large number of nuclear weapons resulting in inventories of plutonium that exceed defense needs and will necessitate long-term storage prior to stabilization. Current strategy has the plutonium shipped to the Savannah River Site (SRS) in 9975 transportation packages and stored in K-Area for at least 10-years. This paper presents the results of a technical evaluation of the 9975 package as a long-term storage container. The ability of the container to survive both nomal condition and accident condition storage events is addressed. Also, the effects of long term storage conditions on package performance and certification will be discussed.