Year
2015
Abstract
The Department of Energy has requested a one-time license exemption from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for to allow shipment of the West Valley Melter Package (WVMP) package to support final disposal. The previously constructed WVMP, containing residual b o r o s i l i c a t e glass and Low Density Cellular Concrete (LDCC), meets the content requirements for a Type B Package. Title 10 of the United States Code of Federal Regulations, Part 71 (10 CFR 71) requires that radioactive releases from a Type B package under Normal Conditions of Transport (NCT) and Hypothetical Accident Conditions (HAC) be less than 1E-7 A2/hr. and 1E-1 A2s/week, respectively. The NRC approved method for demonstrating conformance to the 10CFR71 requirement is through performance of leak rate testing per American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard N14.5. Since the WVMP does not contain a pressure vessel, and was never designed to be leak tight, performance of the ANSI leak rate testing on the WVMP is not applicable, nor possible. Instead, an alternate method, adapted from DOE Handbook 3010 is used to show that the maximum allowed 10 CFR 71 radionuclide release rates for NCT and HAC will not be exceeded. Summarizing the alternate method, and calculating the bounding NCT and HAC radionuclide release rates (in terms of A2s), this paper provides the technical synopsis for requesting the exemption.