Trans­por­tation of an Injector 1 Cyclotron

Feb 15, 2019 | Pro­jects

First part of the shipment from Vil­ligen / Switz­erland to the port of Antwerp / Belgium by road.

In the period from Sep­tember 2017 to May 2018, Orano NCS GmbH suc­cess­fully trans­ported an Injector 1 Cyclotron in three lots from the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), Vil­ligen / Switz­erland to the China Institute of Atomic Energy (CIAE), Beijing / China via the ports of Antwerp and Shanghai.

The project began in 2013 with initial dis­cus­sions. The con­tract for the shipment was signed in 2015 and sup­ple­mented in 2016 by a com­pre­hensive tech­nical and logi­stical concept.

Second part of the shipment from the Port of Antwerp / Belgium to the Port of Shanghai / China by ship.

The loading, welding sealing and stowage and lashing of the radio­active com­ponents (UN 2912 and UN 3321) of the Injector 1 in a manner sui­table for trans­por­tation on heavy haulage trucks and in 20 foot IP 2 con­tainers took place at the beginning of 2017. A total of more than 800 tonnes of material, including the ferrous magnets (with an indi­vidual weight of up to 50 tonnes), plus tubes, fit­tings, valves and switch cabinets and extra-large parts, were packaged securely in con­tainers, so that they could be stowed on the ship in accordance with the regu­la­tions of the IMDG Code and the packing gui­de­lines. Trans­por­tation by sea to Shanghai came next.

The material was divided into three transport sec­tions In accordance with the logi­stics concept of Orano NCS GmbH:
The first section in Sep­tember 2017 con­sisted of three heavy duty trucks, four trucks to transport over­sized parts and two 20 foot containers.

The material was trans­ported from PSI, Vil­ligen / Switz­erland via Basle to Hanau and parked there in a secure area, to be taken later across the German / Belgian border to the Port of Antwerp / Belgium.

The load was customs cleared in Antwerp and trans-shipped to a ship belonging to the Chinese shipping company COSCO.
The second transport section con­sisted of three heavy duty trucks and six 20 foot con­tainers, with the two 50 tonne magnets that had been loaded onto the ship as break bulk.

The third section of the chal­lenging transport movement was a com­bi­nation of three heavy loads, each more than 50 tonnes, one over­sized part and four 20 foot con­tainers to the Port of Antwerp / Belgium and later to Shanghai / China.

The entire transport process, with its sub­sec­tions, was com­pleted suc­cess­fully and carried out to the com­plete satis­faction of our customer.