Subpart C—Design and Performance Requirements for Irradiators

§ 36.21 Performance criteria for sealed sources.

(a) Requirements. Sealed sources installed after July 1, 1993:

(1) Must have a certificate of registration issued under 10 CFR 32.210;

(2) Must be doubly encapsulated;

(3) Must use radioactive material that is as nondispersible as practical and that is as insoluble as practical if the source is used in a wet-source-storage or wet-source-change irradiator;

(4) Must be encapsulated in a material resistant to general corrosion and to localized corrosion, such as 316L stainless steel or other material with equivalent resistance if the sources are for use in irradiator pools; and

(5) In prototype testing of the sealed source, must have been leak tested and found leak-free after each of the tests described in paragraphs (b) through (g) of this section.

(b) Temperature. The test source must be held at –40 °C for 20 minutes, 600 °C for 1 hour, and then be subjected to a thermal shock test with a temperature drop from 600 °C to 20 °C within 15 seconds.

(c) Pressure. The test source must be twice subjected for at least 5 minutes to an external pressure (absolute) of 2 million newtons per square meter.

(d) Impact. A 2-kilogram steel weight, 2.5 centimeters in diameter, must be dropped from a height of 1 meter onto the test source.

(e) Vibration. The test source must be subjected 3 times for 10 minutes each to vibrations sweeping from 25 hertz to 500 hertz with a peak amplitude of 5 times the acceleration of gravity. In addition, each test source must be vibrated for 30 minutes at each resonant frequency found.

(f) Puncture. A 50-gram weight and pin, 0.3-centimeter pin diameter, must be dropped from a height of 1 meter onto the test source.

(g) Bend. If the length of the source is more than 15 times larger than the minimum cross-sectional dimension, the test source must be subjected to a force of 2000 newtons at its center equidistant from two support cylinders, the distance between which is 10 times the minimum cross-sectional dimension of the source.