Approval of Existent Waste Packages and New Package Designs in Preparation for the Konrad Repository

Low and intermediate level radioactive waste from German nuclear and other industries, research facilities and increasingly decommissioned nuclear installations is handled and prepared for interim storage and later disposal in the licensed KONRAD repository. This paper presents aspects, experiences and perspectives of container design testing and qualification procedures. Several new container designs, in particular different types of steel plate containers, have been tested and licensed; some are handled at present or just applied. Examples from typical qualification procedures including drop tests from 0.8 and 5 m height with prototype containers are presented. On the other hand several thousand waste packages are currently stored in interim storage facilities, many of them for more than 10 or 15 years. Based on existing package documentations applications and safety assessments for KONRAD are prepared and have to be evaluated. The paper discusses aspects, difficulties and strategies to demonstrate sufficient compliance to the current KONRAD repository requirements for the large number of existent waste packages.