US regulators approve NAC's highly shielded transport system

The company's OPTIMUS-H system is now approved under the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) 10 CFR Part 71 regulation with a certificate of compliance effective from 5 August. It has already been approved under Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) certification CNSC Certificate Number CDN/2098/B(U)F-96 and associated Validation Certificate Number AUS/2021-94/B(U)F in Australia.

NAC's OPTIMUS - for OPTImal Modular Universal Shipping - transport packaging system was developed to provide an adaptable, efficient and economical alternative to non-typical radioactive materials transportation campaigns which are commonly conducted using larger inefficient transport casks. The system features two models - OPTIMUS-H and OPTIMUS-L - which together can accommodate a wide range of contents to support customer packaging requirements.

The OPTIMUS-L packaging is designed and licensed for materials including contact handled-transuranic waste (TRU), low and intermediate-level solid wastes, low-enriched uranium fuel wastes, and other low activity contents that require shipment. First certified by the NRC in 2021, in January this year it became the first high-capacity packaging to receive NRC certification for high-assay low-enriched uranium TRISO fuels.

Both versions use the same containment vessel design, which NAC says enables an integrated waste management approach that leverages standardisation for packaging and shipment of a range of materials. This allows optimisation of content shielding, payloads, and shipping configurations but can also be uniquely tailored for each project. The highly shielded OPTIMUS-H version relies on a 7-inch-thick ductile cast iron outer shield vessel to provide sufficient shielding for a broader range of co-called Type B contents, including Class B and C waste, Greater-than-Class-C (GTCC) waste, remotely handled-TRU waste, used nuclear fuel, and other intermediate-level and high-level waste.

Certification of OPTIMUS-H in the USA expands the packaging options for commercial customers and government programmes who are looking for more versatile and lower-cost solutions to transport nuclear materials safely and efficiently, NAC President and CEO Kent Cole said, with the small size, modular packaging options and greater adaptability of the OPTIMUS packaging systems providing economical choices for transporting a wide variety of waste materials that until now were considered orphaned and stranded wastes.

"Both the OPTIMUS-L and OPTIMUS-H packaging systems are now licensed in the USA and Canada and deployed commercially," he said. "This allows NAC and OPTIMUS to support a wide variety of packaging and transportation projects in North America and abroad."

NAC has delivered 22 OPTIMUS-L and nine OPTIMUS-H systems to support North American packaging and transportation projects since it launched the system in 2020, with OPTIMUS-H having been deployed in Canada to support a major CANDU used fuel transportation campaign.