Container design and manufacture

Through its subsidiaries in France (TN International, LMC, MAINCO & MECAGEST), the United States (TRANSNUCLEAR Inc.) and Japan (TRANSNUCLEAR Ltd.), AREVA manages all aspects relating to the packaging of radioactive materials:

• Design for shipping and storage
• Approval by the relevant safety authorities
• Monitoring of manufacturing at qualified subcontractors
• Servicing and maintenance

Innovative and improved containers

AREVA offers custom-made solutions that take into account:

• stringent requirements in terms of safety and protection,
• the diversity and multiplicity of the relevant material,
• the various configurations of the container loading and unloading facilities.

It takes approximately 3 years to design a container and between 18 and 24 months to build it. 

At the front end of the fuel cycle

• Shipping containers for nuclear materials from mines, enrichment plants and fuel fabrication plants: uranium concentrates, natural and enriched uranium hexafluoride (UF₆)
• Containers for shipping new fuel assemblies to nuclear power plants

At the back end of the fuel cycle

• Shipping containers for plutonium powder from the La Hague plant to the MELOX plant for the fabrication of recycled MOX fuels 
• Shipping containers for used fuel discharged from reactors to the La Hague plant
• Containers for shipping and storage of vitrified waste and compacted metal waste
• Containers for the interim storage of used fuel on-site or at a storage center

Confirmed leadership in the field of logistics

AREVA is a world leader in the area of containers for radioactive materials, with:

• over 150 container designs,
• more than 30 annual applications for approval or validation,
• 5 patents granted every year,
• 180 patents granted to TN International,
• over 1,000 container systems ordered across the globe,
• 15,000 used fuel assemblies stored in our containers across the world.