Year
2011
Abstract
Emerging in 1981, the U.S. Department of Energy sponsored development of a mainframe-computer database consisting of information from Certificates of Compliance for radioactive material packages. The Commission directed development of the RAdioactive Material PACkaging database as a tool for assisting those operating under the authority of the U.S. government who needed to ship radioactive materials. For example, an engineer could specify the chemical and physical form of isotopes to be shipped or geometric constraints, etc. and quickly identify candidate packagings. Since that time, the database has expanded greatly and moved to World Wide Web. The RAMPAC website hosting the online database also offers myriad packaging-related information or links to the information elsewhere on the web. Updated regularly and frequently, the website currently consists of ~700 active display pages including nearly a gigabyte of certificate files and other relevant information. In short, RAMPAC has become an all-in-one source for information on shipping containers for radioactive materials. This paper elaborates on the current state of the RAMPAC website, since 2008, and describes the changes planned for 2011. This paper is an update to the paper presented by T. K. Houghtaling (retired), et al., to the INMM in 2008.