High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters are relied upon at the Hanford site to support several different activities. Each facility relies upon the filters to provide the same function; remove radioactive particulate from various air streams. However, HEPA filters are operated in differing environmental conditions from one facility to another and the constituents in the air streams also differ. In addition, some HEPA filters at the Hanford site have been in service for several years. As a result, an assessment was performed which evaluated the service life and conditions of the HEPA filters at the Hanford site.

The controls on the potentiometric surface and temperature distribution at Yucca Mountain have long been thought to be related to major fault zones. The exact way the faults influence these distributions has been somewhat elusive. The parametric studies discussed in this paper show that the fault zone x, y and z permeability tensors, as well as the alignment of the fault zone in relation to the flow field (1), are major contributing factors in the pressure and temperature distributions. A series of runs were conducted for the State of Nevada with a 3-dimensional model utilizing the AT2VOC version of the A-TOUGH code (2),(3). The runs were conducted under steady state conditions and utilized fully coupled heat and flow conditions. The model setup and boundary conditions are fully described. Comparisons were done with varying degrees of anisotropic permeability ratios in the fault zones. The resulting temperature and pressure profiles are compared. The model, while simple, allowed us to examine the relationship of the head and temperature distributions to the position and permeability of major fault zones. It is our conclusion that the major faults included in this model do significantly affect the observed head and temperature distributions. Performance Assessments currently may …

The Murmansk Initiative-RF (MI) was conceived to provide the Russian Federation (RF) with the capacity to manage low-level liquid radioactive waste (LLRW) and comply with the requirements of the London Convention that prohibit ocean dumping. The trilateral project among Norway, the RF, and the United States of America (U.S.) began in 1994 and was the first to utilize exclusively Russian subcontractors to upgrade and expand an existing LLRW treatment plant on the premises of RTP Atomflot in Murmansk, Russia. The project moved quickly through the design phase. Progress during the construction phase was somewhat slower because of difficulties with acquisition of hardware, inexperience with automated instrumentation and control equipment, and unexpected design changes in the cementation unit. The project advanced into the test-operation phase, which is currently underway, in June 2001. Initial runs with liquid waste have revealed that procedures for unloading spent ion-exchange sorbents could be improved and that sludges formed during removal of alkaline-earth metals should be compacted in order for the facility to operate at its full potential. Resolution of these issues is expected within the next few months.

Moving hazardous chemicals presents the risk of exposure for workers engaged in the activity and others that might be in the immediate area. Adverse affects are specific to the chemicals and can range from minor skin, eye, or mucous membrane irritation, to burns, respiratory distress, nervous system dysfunction, or even death. A case study is presented where in the interest of waste minimization; original shipping packaging was removed from a glass bottle of nitric acid, while moving corrosive liquid through a security protocol into a Radiological Control Area (RCA). During the transfer, the glass bottle broke. The resulting release of nitric acid possibly exposed 12 employees with one employee being admitted overnight at a hospital for observation. This is a clear example of administrative controls to reduce the generation of suspect radioactive waste being implemented at the expense of employee health. As a result of this event, material handling procedures that assure the safe movement of hazardous chemicals through a security protocol into a radiological control area were developed. Specifically, hazardous material must be transferred using original shipping containers and packaging. While this represents the potential to increase the generation of suspect radioactive waste in a radiological controlled area, arguments …

Amchitka Island, Alaska, was at one time an integral player in the nation's defense program. Located in the North Pacific Ocean in the Aleutian Island archipelago, the island was intermittently inhabited by several key government agencies, including the U.S. Army, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (predecessor agency to the U.S. Department of Energy), and the U.S. Navy. Since 1993, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has conducted extensive investigations on Amchitka to determine the nature and extent of contamination resulting from historic nuclear testing. The uninhabited island was the site of three high-yield nuclear tests from 1965 to 1971. These test locations are now part of the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Operations Office's Environmental Management Program. In the summer of 2001, the DOE launched a large-scale remediation effort on Amchitka to perform agreed-upon corrective actions to the surface of the island. Due to the lack of resources available on Amchitka and logistical difficulties with conducting work at such a remote location, the DOE partnered with the Navy and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to share certain specified costs and resources. Attempting to negotiate the partnerships while organizing and implementing the surface remediation on Amchitka proved to be …

The uranium and transuranic content of site soils and building rubble can be accurately measured using a NaI(Tl) well counter, without significant soil preparation. Accurate measurements of total uranium in uranium-transuranic mixtures can be made, despite a wide range (0.3% to 97%) of uranium enrichment, sample mass, and activity concentrations. The appropriate uranium scaling factors needed to include the undetected uranium isotopes, particularly U 234 can be readily determined on a sample by sample basis as a part of the field analysis, by comparing the relative response of the U 235 186 keV peak versus the K shell X rays of U 238 , U 235, and their immediate ingrowth daughters. The ratio of the two results is a sensitive and accurate predictor of the uranium enrichment and scaling factors. The case study will illustrate how NaI(Tl) gamma spectrometry was used to provide rapid turnaround uranium and transuranic activity levels for soil and building rubble with sample by sample determination of the appropriate scaling factor to include the U234 and Uranium238 content.

The development of the nuclear techniques in Romania and the commissioning of the WWR-S research reactor belonging to the Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering-(NIPNE) demand to deal with the storage and disposal of radioactive waste. The institute decided to store the radioactive waste inside a building that belonged to the Defense of Capital City System (the Army) called ''Fort'' which is located on the Magurele site. There are still about 800 packages containing cement conditioned radioactive in the storage facility of NIPNE which need to be repackaged, because they are in an advanced state of degradation. The new package obtained the regulatory design approval. It consists in an internal basket in which the degraded package are placed, a cement containment system, and an external cask in which the basket are placed and conditioned with the cement.

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Nuclear waste management is more then finding a technical answer to a technical problem. Dealing with nuclear, or any other form of hazardous waste, for that matter, not only implies solving a technical problem, it also means solving a societal problem. And societal questions cannot be resolved in a technical laboratory. Of course, the technical aspect of nuclear waste management and disposal is a very important one, but the societal aspect is of equal importance. In order to find an implementable solution to deal with nuclear waste, attention should be paid to what kind of solution the society wants and under what conditions a proposed solution might be acceptable. This, however, cannot be achieved by simply adding a number of ''societal parameters'' to a technical concept modeling. It is something that can only be established through interaction with the public concerned. And that, in addition, is not something that can be preformed as an accidental spin off of a vastly elaborated technical program. Communicating or interacting with the public does not mean sweeping them off their feet with smoothly edited leaflets explaining how technically sound the proposed solution is and how wonderful it would fit in their back yard. Adding, …

In Italy following a referendum held in 1987, nuclear energy has been phased out. Since 1998, a general site selection process covering the whole Italian territory has been under way. A GIS (Geographic Information System) methodology was implemented in three steps using the ESRI Arc/Info and Arc/View platforms. The screening identified approximately 0.8% of the Italian territory as suitable for locating the LLW Repository. 200 areas have been identified as suitable for the location of the LLW Repository, using a multiple exclusion criteria procedure (1:500,000), regional scale (1:100.000) and local scale (1:25,000-1:10,000). A methodology for evaluating these areas has been developed allowing, along with the evaluation of the long term efficiency of the engineered barrier system (EBS), the characterization of the selected areas in terms of physical and safety factors and planning factors. The first step was to identify, on a referenced FEPs list, a group of geomorphological, geological, hydrogeological, climatic and human behavior caused process and/or events, which were considered of importance for the site evaluation, taking into account the Italian situation. A site evaluation system was established ascribing weighted scores to each of these processes and events, which were identified as parameters of the new evaluation system. The …

Naturally occurring radioactive material is technologically concentrated in the piping in systems in the oil and gas industry, especially in the offshore facilities. The activity, mainly Ra-226, in the scales in the systems are often at levels classified as low level radioactive waste (LSA) in the industry. When the components and pipes are descaled for maintenance or recycling purposes, usually by high-pressure water jetting, the LSA scales arising constitute a significant quantity of radioactive waste for disposal. A new process is under development for the treatment of scales, where the radioactive solids are separated from the inactive. This would result in a much smaller fraction to be deposited as radioactive waste. The radioactive part recovered from the scales will be reduced to a stable non-metallic salt and because the volume is significantly smaller then the original material, will minimize the cost for disposal. The pipes, that have been cleaned by high pressure water jetting can either be reused or free released by scrapping and melting for recycling.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), National Nuclear Security Administration of the Nevada Operations Office (NNSA/NV) operates and maintains two active facilities on the Nevada Test Site (NTS) that dispose defense-generated low-level radioactive waste (LLW), mixed radioactive waste, and ''classified waste'' in shallow trenches and pits. The operation and maintenance of the LLW disposal sites are self-regulated by the DOE under DOE Order 435.1. This Order requires formal review of a performance assessment (PA) and composite analysis (CA; assessment of all interacting radiological sources) for each LLW disposal system followed by an active maintenance program that extends through and beyond the site closure program. The Nevada disposal facilities continue to receive NTS-generated LLW and defense-generated LLW from across the DOE complex. The PA/CAs for the sites have been conditionally approved and the facilities are now under a formal maintenance program that requires testing of conceptual models, quantifying and attempting to reduce uncertainty, and implementing confirmatory and long-term background monitoring, all leading to eventual closure of the disposal sites. To streamline and reduce the cost of the maintenance program, the NNSA/NV is converting the deterministic PA/CAs to probabilistic models using GoldSim, a probabilistic simulation computer code. The output of probabilistic models …

The Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor (BGRR) Historical Site Assessment (BNL 1999) identified contamination inside the Below Grade Ducts (BGD) resulting from the deposition of fission and activation products from the pile on the inner carbon steel liner during reactor operations. Due to partial flooding of the BGD since shutdown, some of this contamination may have leaked out of the ducts into the surrounding soils. The baseline remediation plan for cleanup of contaminated soils beneath the BGD involves complete removal of the ducts, followed by surveying the underlying and surrounding soils, then removing soil that has been contaminated above cleanup goals. Alternatively, if soil contamination around and beneath the BGD is either non-existent/minimal (below cleanup goals) or is very localized and can be ''surgically removed'' at a reasonable cost, the BGD can be decontaminated and left in place. The focus of this Department of Energy Accelerated Site Technology Deployment (DOE ASTD) project was to determine the extent (location, type, and level) of soil contamination surrounding the BGD and to present this data to the stakeholders as part of the Engineering Evaluation/Cost Analysis (EE/CA) process. A suite of innovative characterization tools was used to complete the characterization of the soil surrounding the …

This paper describes major components of the Dounreay Site Restoration Plan, DSRP to deal with the site's solid intermediate level waste, ILW legacy. Historic solid ILW exists in the Shaft (disposals between 1959 and 1977), the Wet Silo (operated between 1973 and 1998), and in operating engineered drummed storage. Significant further arisings are expected from future operations, post-operations clean out and decommissioning through to the completion of site restoration, expected to be complete by about 2060. The raw waste is in many solid forms and also incorporates sludge, some fissile material and hazardous chemical components. The aim of the Solid ILW Project is to treat and condition all this waste to make it passively safe and in a form which can be stored for a substantial period, and then transported to the planned U.K. national deep repository for ILW disposal. The Solid ILW Project involves the construction of head works for waste retrieval operations at the Shaft and Wet Silo, a Waste Treatment Plant and a Conditioned Waste Store to hold the conditioned waste until the disposal facilities become available. In addition, there are infrastructure activities to enable the new construction: contaminated ground remediation, existing building demolition, underground and overground …

DOE's Office of River Protection (ORP) is readying itself to commence construction of a Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) that will start the process of turning Hanford tank waste into glass. The plant is state-of-the art and includes reasonable flexibility to improve operations as technology and operational understandings improve. During its 40 year design life the plant has the capability to treat half of the total volume of tank waste and reduce risk to the public by up to ninety percent. Looking beyond initial processing towards the project end state, however, it is apparent that ORP's baseline approach is part of the issue raised by the DOE Secretary when he said that $300 billion and 75 years is too costly and too long for DOE's environmental cleanups. ORP has reviewed its cost and schedule drivers and has started identifying areas where better technologies and risk-based strategies could substantially decrease its life cycle cost and schedule. Specific technologies under consideration will be discussed along with expected return on investment. ORP is totally committed to taking all steps necessary during cleanup to protect human health and the environment and to comply with appropriate regulations and commitments. But, ORP is also very conscious of …

Critical Inquiry, has not only been successful in increasing university student retention rate but also in improving student academic performance beyond the initial year of transition into the University. The seminar course herein reviewed is a balanced combination of student personal and academic skill development combined with a solid background in modern nuclear systems. It is a valid premise to assume that entering students as well as stakeholders of the general public demonstrate equal levels of capability. Nuclear systems is designed to give a broad and basic knowledge of nuclear power, medical, industrial, research, and military systems (nuclear systems) in 20-25 hours.

This paper describes the progress on cleanup of the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP), an environmental management project located south of Buffalo, NY. The WVDP was the site of the only commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing facility to have operated in the United States (1966 to 1972). Former fuel reprocessing operations generated approximately 600,000 gallons of liquid high-level radioactive waste stored in underground tanks. The U.S. Congress passed the WVDP Act in 1980 (WVDP Act) to authorize cleanup of the 220-acre facility. The facility is unique in that it sits on the 3,345-acre Western New York Nuclear Service Center (WNYNSC), which is owned by New York State through the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has overall responsibility for the cleanup that is authorized by the WVDP Act, paying 90 percent of the WVDP costs; NYSERDA pays 10 percent. West Valley Nuclear Services Company (WVNSCO) is the management contractor at the WVDP. This paper will provide a description of the many accomplishments at the WVDP, including the pretreatment and near completion of vitrification of all the site's liquid high-level radioactive waste, a demonstration of technologies to characterize the remaining material in the …

In Russia, mixed oxide (MOX) fuel is produced in a pilot facility ''Paket'' at ''MAYAK'' Production Association. The Mining-Chemical Combine (MCC) has developed plans to design and build a dedicated industrial-scale plant to produce MOX fuel and fuel assemblies (FA) for VVER-1000 water reactors and the BN-600 fast-breeder reactor, which is pending an official Russian Federation (RF) site-selection decision. The design output of the plant is based on a production capacity of 2.75 tons of weapons plutonium per year to produce the resulting fuel assemblies: 1.25 tons for the BN-600 reactor FAs and the remaining 1.5 tons for VVER-1000 FAs. It is likely the quantity of BN-600 FAs will be reduced in actual practice. The process of nuclear disarmament frees a significant amount of weapons plutonium for other uses, which, if unutilized, represents a constant general threat. In France, Great Britain, Belgium, Russia, and Japan, reactor-grade plutonium is used in MOX-fuel production. Making MOX-fuel for CANDU (Canada) and pressurized water reactors (PWR) (Europe) is under consideration in Russia. If this latter production is added, as many as 5 tons of Pu per year might be processed into new FAs in Russia. Many years of work and experience are represented in …

RH TRU Waste is radioactive waste that requires shielding in addition to that provided by the container to protect people nearby from radiation exposure. By definition, the radiation dose rate at the outer surface of the container is greater than 200 millirem per hour and less than 1,000 rem per hour. The DOE is proposing a process for the characterization of RH TRU waste planned for disposal in the WIPP. This characterization process represents a performance-driven approach that satisfies the requirements of the New Mexico Hazardous Waste Act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations for WIPP long-term performance, the transportation requirements of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Department of Transportation, as well as the technical safety requirements of RH TRU waste handling. The transportation, management and disposal of RH TRU waste is regulated by external government agencies as well as by the DOE itself. Externally, the characterization of RH-TRU waste for disposal at the WIPP is regulated by 20.4.1.500 New Mexico Administrative Code (incorporating 40 CFR 261.13) for the hazardous constituents and 40 CFR 194.24 for the radioactive constituents. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission certifies the shipping casks and the transportation system must meet DOT regulations. Internally, the DOE …

The in vitro fracture toughness of human dention has been reported to be of the order of 3 MPa sqrt m. This result, however is based on a single study for a single orientation, and furthermore involves notched, rather than fatigue precracked, test samples.

Design studios and building science courses have been conducted independent of each other, mainly due to a lack of tools that allow quick and easy consideration of building science criteria, such as comfort and energy requirements, during the design process. Existing tools are not user-friendly and their use requires significant effort in gaining familiarity with the input requirements, understanding the modeling assumptions and interpreting the output. This paper is about the Building Design Advisor (BDA), an evolving computer-based tool intended to bridge the gap between design studios and building science considerations by addressing the above-mentioned limitations of existing tools. BDA allows automatic preparation of input files to multiple simulation tools while the user is working in a CAD environment. BDA automatically activates the relevant simulation tools when the user selects performance parameters to be computed and provides the results in a graphical form, allowing comparison of multiple design options with respect to multiple performance criteria. The paper includes considerations for the use of the BDA in the design studio and ends with a description of the current development efforts and future plans.

This user's guide documents the capabilities and functions of the Expanded Time Phase Force Deployment Data (TPFDD) Editor (ETEdit) software application. Step-by-step procedures for using ETEdit are provided in Chapter 5. Although ETEdit is primarily an editing tool for use with various software applications, it can also be used as a stand-alone application or in tandem with another application. It provides force module data that allow you to display and modify movement requirements, as well as to display the requirement line numbers (RLNs) for both detail and parent hierarchy. The primary purpose of ETEdit is to make changes to TPFDDs. Because it has been designed as a separate application, you can apply the ETEdit capabilities for use with other models.

Environmental restoration activities at the Department of Energy Savannah River Site (SRS) utilize innovative site characterization approaches and technologies that minimize waste generation. Characterization is typically conducted in phases, first by collecting large quantities of inexpensive data, followed by targeted minimally invasive drilling to collect depth-discrete soil/groundwater data, and concluded with the installation of permanent multi-level groundwater monitoring wells. Waste-reducing characterization methods utilize non-traditional drilling practices (sonic drilling), minimally intrusive (geoprobe, cone penetrometer) and non-intrusive (3-D seismic, ground penetration radar, aerial monitoring) investigative tools. Various types of sensor probes (moisture sensors, gamma spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, laser induced and X-ray fluorescence) and hydrophobic membranes (FLUTe) are used in conjunction with depth-discrete sampling techniques to obtain high-resolution 3-D plume profiles. Groundwater monitoring (short/long-term) approaches utilize multi-level sampling technologies (Strata-Sampler, Cone-Sipper, Solinst Waterloo, Westbay) and low-cost diffusion samplers for seepline/surface water sampling. Upon collection of soil and groundwater data, information is portrayed in a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) format for interpretation and planning purposes. At the SRS, the use of non-traditional drilling methods and minimally/non intrusive investigation approaches along with in-situ sampling methods has minimized waste generation and improved the effectiveness and efficiency of characterization activities.

In the technical paper there is presented the information on the basic equipment and more than thirty-year experience of RFNC-VNIIEF activities in the sphere of producing highly enriched isotopes of actinide elements--thorium, uranium, neptunium, plutonium, americium and curium--for scientific researches and practical applications. Electromagnetic separator and radiochemical methods provide obtaining of superpure isotope samples for nuclear-physical radiometric and mass-spectrometric equipment, and also as tracers when analyzing environmental contamination. There are presented the structure of the laboratory occupied with these isotopes electromagnetic separation as well as the nomenclature and characteristics of the specimens supplied. There are stated science and engineering elaborations of technologies aimed at producing alpha-ray radiating radionuclides--thorium-229, thorium-228, actinium-225, radium-224--for the purpose of anti-cancer therapy using bismuth-212 and bismuth-213 produced by the specially developed generators. There are presented the basic directions of cooperation with other Russian Institutes in developing this promising line of conversion.