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These approval certificates are usually issued for a period
of five years. In 2015, about fifty approval applications
were submitted to ASN by the manufacturers.
The approval specifies the conditions for manufacture,
utilisation and maintenance of the transport package.
It is issued for a package model independently of the
actual transport operation itself, for which no prior
ASN opinion is generally required, but which may be
subject to security checks (physical protection of materials
against malicious acts under the supervision of the
Defence and Security High Official from the Ministry
of the Environment, Energy and the Sea).
If a package is unable to meet all the regulatory
prescriptions, the regulations nonetheless allow for
its transport by means of a shipment under special
arrangement. The consignor must then define
compensatory measures to ensure a level of safety
equivalent to that which would have been obtained had
the regulatory prescriptions been met. For example, if
it cannot be completely demonstrated that a package is
able to withstand the 9-mdrop, a compensatory measure
may be to reduce the speed of the vehicle and have it
escorted. The probability of an accident (and thus of
a violent shock on the package) is thus considerably
reduced. A shipment under special arrangement is only
possible with the approval of the competent authority,
which then issues approval for shipment under special
arrangement, describing the compensatory measures
to be applied.
In the case of certificates issued abroad, the international
regulations provide for their recognition by ASN. In
certain cases, this recognition is automatic and the
foreign certificate is directly valid in France. In other
cases, the foreign certificate is only valid if validated by
ASN, which then issues a new certificate.
ASN delivered 43 approval certificates in 2015, for
which the breakdown by type is shown in graph 1. The
nature of the transport operations concerned by these
certificates is shown in graph 2.
GRAPH 1:
Breakdown of the number of approvals according to type
Special arrangements
Extension
New approval
Prolongation
Validation
0
5
10
15
20
25
GRAPH 2:
Breakdown of the number of approvals according to their content
Spent fuel
Fresh fuel
Waste
Research
Sources
Others
0
5
10
15
20
25
2014
2015
2013
2012
2011
2014
2015
2013
2012
2011
357
CHAPTER 11:
TRANSPORT OF RADIOACTIVE SUBSTANCES
ASN report on the state of nuclear safety and radiation protection in France in 2015