Specification of test criteria and probabilistic approach: the case of plutonium air transport

The safety of international transportation relies on compliance with IAEA regulations which specify a serie of test which the package is supposed to withstand. For Plutonium air transport some national regulations are more stringent than the IAEA one, namely the US one. For example the drop test is to be performed at 129 m.s-1 instead of 13.4 m.s-1. The development of international Plutonium exchanges has raised the question of the adequacy of both those standards. The purpose of this paper is to show how a probabilistic approach helps in assessing the efficiency of a move towards more stringent tests