Waste Technology Section
Source Recovery
Building Sealed Sources Conditioning Operations
In Member States where not all technical expertise or needed equipment are available, the IAEA provides assistance to carry out the actual conditioning operations that make sealed sources safe, secure and properly manageable for a long time to come. The level of assistance provided depends on the expertise and equipment available in the country, and can be in the form of:
- Active involvement
where a team trained and certified by the Agency goes into the country to conduct the conditioning operation;
- Advisory involvement
where a team from the country itself is trained to conduct such an operation; or
- Information technology involvement
where a well-qualified team and the required infrastructure are available within the country and the Agency provides well-tested, written procedures and communicates technical information and engineering drawings to the team to save effort and time.
Operations are currently planned and conducted in connection with
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Radium sources (as a special case)
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Long lived activity sources
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High activity sources
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Orphaned sources and sources that where involved in accidents
Due to the wide variation in the design and the characteristics of the sources a number of stainless steel capsules, lead storage shields, waste packages and overpacks have been designed and used in various operations worldwide. The various designs are aimed at providing a type A package, meaning that it can be shipped with no need for special arrangements. In some cases a type B package, that was licensed and approved by the local regulatory authority, was designed due to the high activity involved for long term storage.
All capsules used are designed to be welded. Special welding equipment for manual as well as semi-automatic remote welding has also been designed.
Leak testing equipment according to ISO standard requirements for sealed radioactive sources has also been designed and built to be lightweight, portable and simple to operate.
In working with Member States, it was observed that many lack proper facilities that could deal with source handling, conditioning and storage. A standard generic design for a sealed source processing facility was developed, which Member States can use under Agency guidance. In some cases where financial resources where not available a temporary special design of an ISO container was used to alleviate the situation.
All IAEA supported operations are carried out according to written procedures and within a quality assurance programme. The technical procedures have been developed and are currently still being enhanced by international experts.