Special requirements for plutonium air shipments.
10 C.F.R. § 71.64
in effectEffective: 2024-07-01(a) A package for the shipment of plutonium by air subject to § 71.88(a)(4), in addition to satisfying the requirements of §§ 71.41 through 71.63, as applicable, must be designed, constructed, and prepared for shipment so that under the tests specified in—
(1) Section 71.74 (“Accident conditions for air transport of plutonium”)—
(i) The containment vessel would not be ruptured in its post-tested condition, and the package must provide a sufficient degree of containment to restrict accumulated loss of plutonium contents to not more than an A2 quantity in a period of 1 week;
(ii) The external radiation level would not exceed 10 mSv/h (1 rem/h) at a distance of 1 m (40 in) from the surface of the package in its post-tested condition in air; and
(iii) A single package and an array of packages are demonstrated to be subcritical in accordance with this part, except that the damaged condition of the package must be considered to be that which results from the plutonium accident tests in § 71.74, rather than the hypothetical accident tests in § 71.73; and
(2) Section 71.74(c), there would be no detectable leakage of water into the containment vessel of the package.
(b) With respect to the package requirements of paragraph (a), there must be a demonstration or analytical assessment showing that—
(1) The results of the physical testing for package qualification would not be adversely affected to a significant extent by—
(i) The presence, during the tests, of the actual contents that will be transported in the package; and
(ii) Ambient water temperatures ranging from 0.6 °C ( + 33 °F) to 38 °C ( + 100 °F) for those qualification tests involving water, and ambient atmospheric temperatures ranging from −40 °C (−40 °F) to + 54 °C ( + 130°F) for the other qualification tests.
(2) The ability of the package to meet the acceptance standards prescribed for the accident condition sequential tests would not be adversely affected if one or more tests in the sequence were deleted.
Source: eCFRURL: https://www.ecfr.gov/api/versioner/v1/full/2024-07-01/title-10.xmlFetched: 7/26/2026