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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 433 records · Page 24
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2016

Innovative Waste Packaging and Associated Venting/Hydrogen Management - 16594

The original strategy for managing intermediate level waste (ILW) was developed in the 1980s by the UK Nuclear Industry Radioactive Waste Executive (NIREX), which is now the Radioactive Waste Management Limited (RWM), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). The strategy involved retrieving ILW, sorting and encapsulating it in cement based grout within thin walled stainless steel containers. The containers would then be transferred to a large purpose-built shielded ILW store on site, where they would be stored until the planned final deep geological disposal facility becomes available. In recognition of the high up-front costs of such a strategy, which requires remote facilities for the encapsulation and storage, and coupled with the long programme duration for the design, construction and commissioning of these facilities, waste management organisations responsible for managing the clean-up of legacy facilities within the UK have, in recent years, sought innovative solutions which could potentially both accelerate clean-up and hazard reduction on sites, and with a lower overall programme lifecycle cost. Many of the recent innovative solutions are focused around a new family of packaging designs known as robust shielded containers (RSCs). These are self-shielded containers manufactured from materials such as ductile cast iron or fabricated steel. These containers offer the potential to package wastes for disposal without encapsulation and avoid the need for a highly engineered remote handled shielded store for interim storage. The paper provides a high level overview of the generic concepts of RSCs developed by Croft and focuses on the specific challenges of wasteform evolution on waste package integrity and performance. In particular, the integrity and performance of the filtered vent system required to manage internal pressurisation and to ensure sufficient venting capacity of hydrogen and other evolved gases. The paper summarises the analysis by ARUP undertaken to substantiate the RSC integrity under detonation/deflagration explosion loadings arising from hydrogen accumulation. Analyses of the structural response of the filter assembly were undertaken for both detonation and deflagration explosion scenarios, with the loadings applied to the filter housing rim and to the filter vent cover. The paper also presents evidence of the mechanical performance of the filter medium in terms of pressure transients during deflagration events and the degree to which filtration efficiency is maintained. (authors)

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DOE OSTI2010

An information management system for a spent nuclear fuel interim storage facility.

We describe an integrated information management system for an independent spent fuel dry-storage installation (ISFSI) that can provide for (1) secure and authenticated data collection, (2) data analysis, (3) dissemination of information to appropriate stakeholders via a secure network, and (4) increased public confidence and support of the facility licensing and operation through increased transparency. This information management system is part of a collaborative project between Sandia National Laboratories, Taiwan Power Co., and the Fuel Cycle Materials Administration of Taiwan's Atomic Energy Council, which is investigating how to implement this concept.

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DOE OSTI2024

Consolidated Interim Storage Advantages and Disadvantages from Prior Reports and Studies

The question of whether centralized storage of civilian spent nuclear fuel (SNF) should be part of the federal waste management system as an intermediate step before permanent disposal has been debated for more than four decades. Since the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) (U.S. House of Representatives 1982) was enacted, the need for interim storage facilities (ISFs) as part of the federal waste management system has been analyzed and documented in numerous reports and studies. This paper summarizes the advantages and disadvantages as described in those reports of incorporating an ISF into the waste management system.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Results from the last DD and DT JET campaigns in the framework of the EUROfusion Tokamak Exploitation Work Package activity

JET, the only tokamak capable of operating with deuterium–tritium (D–T) fuel (since TFTR was shutdown in 1999), has provided essential experimental data to support ITER and DEMO design and operation. Within the EUROfusion Tokamak Exploitation Work Package, JET completed its final campaigns (2022–2023), culminating in the third D–T campaign (DTE3). These experiments addressed key challenges in plasma scenarios, exhaust control, and tritium management under reactor-relevant conditions. Significant progress was achieved in demonstrating ITER-like integrated scenarios with impurity seeding, achieving partial divertor detachment and high confinement ($H_{98}(y,2)$ ≈ 0.85) at 3 MA in D–T plasmas. Advanced exhaust regimes such as quasi-continuous exhaust (QCE) and X-point radiator (XPR) were successfully achieved first in D–D and then extended to D–T operation, confirming their relevance for mixed isotope operation. Operational milestones included a new world record of 69 MJ fusion energy in tritium-rich hybrid plasmas and long-pulse H-mode operation up to 60 s, contributing with unique data to the CICLOP database. Physics studies focused on peeling-limited pedestals in support of ITER and improved understanding of edge stability and impurity screening in metallic environments. Extensive usage of the shattered pellet injector (SPI) on JET provided critical information for the design of the ITER disruption mitigation system (DMS). Real-time control systems for D/T ratio control and plasma exhaust were deployed and demonstrated in D–D and D–T, while energetic particle physics investigations unfolded the role of fast ions in turbulence suppression mechanisms. Comprehensive tritium retention studies using gas balance method, post-mortem analysis, and ITER-relevant laser induced desorption spectroscopy (LIDS) diagnostics provided essential input for tritium accountancy strategies. These results are validating the ITER operational concepts, inform DEMO design, and deliver critical experience in nuclear operation and scenario integration.

disruptions↗
DOE OSTI2013

The impact of council directive 2011/70/EURATOM and IAEA joint convention review meetings on the ongoing establishment of the Portuguese regulatory framework and on the future of national radioactive waste

Council Directive 2011/70/EURATOM of 19 July 2011, establishing a Community framework for the responsible and safe management of spent fuel and radioactive waste will enter in force August 2013 in all EU Member States. Portugal has already started preparing its legislative framework to accommodate the new legislative piece. However, the first report of Portugal to the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management of the IAEA, in Vienna, 2012, has shown that Portugal still has many steps to overcome to establish a successful and effective basic regulatory framework. The existence of many competent authorities related to the radiological protection area and a newly independent commission that is still looking on how to fulfill its regulator role in other areas such as the radioactive waste management makes quite challenging the full application of the new directive as well as compliance that Portugal will have to show in the next Joint Convention review meeting in order to meet the obligations of the Convention. In this paper, the reality of the regulatory Portuguese framework on radiological protection, nuclear safety and radioactive waste management is presented. Discussion of the future impact of the new legislation and its consequences such as the need to setup the national program on radioactive waste management is critical discussed. (authors)

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DOE OSTI2012

An Overview of IAEA Activities to Support Pre-disposal Management of Radioactive Wastes in Member States - 12334

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) promotes safe and effective management of radioactive waste and has suitable programmes in place to serve the needs of Member States in this area. These programmes cover the development and use of safety standards, planning, technologies and approaches needed for the management of different types of radioactive waste, resulting both from the nuclear fuel cycle and nuclear applications. In the pre-disposal area, the assistance to Members States covers a wide range of topics, including policy and strategy, inventory assessment, technologies and approaches for waste minimization, selection of technical options for waste processing and storage, improvement in operating practices at nuclear facilities, optimization of waste management capacity, etc. and is delivered through the publication of technical guidance documents, coordinated research projects, networks, technical cooperation projects and organization of training and technical review services. This report presents an overview of recent IAEA accomplishments aiming to support activities in pre-disposal management of radioactive waste with focus on technological aspects. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2014

Recent Work on Calorimetry at LANL

This report is a briefing to collaborators at the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company, Oskarshamn, Sweden, January 14, 2014. It describes the way in which calorimetry supports the safegurard mission.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗
DOE OSTI2016

Nuclear Waste Facility Siting; 40 Years of Experience - 16521

In this study, siting efforts for radioactive waste management facilities in democratic countries have been reviewed to identify common factors of success and failure. The study has considered facility siting efforts in the past 40 years. The study has considered storage and disposal facilities for low-level wastes (LLW), transuranic wastes (TRU), intermediate-level wastes (ILW), high-level wastes (HLW) and used nuclear fuel (UNF). The study has reviewed thirty-nine facility siting efforts with the following results: - 13 successes in Finland, Germany, Japan, Korea, Spain, Sweden and the US. - 18 failures in Australia, Korea, the UK and the US. - 8 ongoing efforts in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the US. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2021

Waste Compliance and Tracking System (WCATS) Version 3 Requirements Document

This document describes the end-user requirements for the Waste Compliance and Tracking System (WCATS) project in accordance with the WCATS Software Quality Management Plan, EPC-WMP-WCATSPLAN-001. The WCATS application shall support the generation, characterization, processing, and shipment of LANL radioactive, hazardous, and industrial waste. Regulatory drivers include RCRA hazardous waste, DOT shipping, NNSA nuclear material control and accountability, DOE nuclear safety, TSDF permit, and transuranic waste certification requirements. The system will utilize a task-based architecture that supports the spectrum of treatment, storage, disposal, administrative, and characterization based unit operations necessary to manage waste from cradle to grave. The application design shall readily accommodate new facilities, processes, workflow, signature requirements, and so forth, via end-user established metadata. WCATS will provide support for representing waste storage and disposal facilities, buildings, rooms, and grid layouts (x, y, z) to support waste and radioactive material inventory management. Nuclear material at risk (MAR), DOE hazard rating (e.g., Category II facility) compliance per DOE-STD-1027, and permit inventory requirements will be configurable for any storage or disposal facility, or waste operation, and the system will automatically evaluate and enforce those requirements. In addition, the application will support the characterization and management of the entire range of hazardous and radioactive wastes (TRU, MTRU, LLW, MLLW, hazardous waste, etc.) that might be colocated or processed at a permitted facility. Some capabilities not found in traditional systems include user-defined tank systems for liquid waste, user-defined work paths (i.e., sequence of operations), and an equipment subsystem for tracking the calibration, maintenance, and inspection of tools used to process waste, such as torque wrenches, scales, pH probes, etc. The application incorporates a desktop and mobile user interface as shown in Figure 1. The mobile interface supports field operations, such as waste item characterization, intra-facility transfers, internal and external audits, and shipment preparation and receipt.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2013

An integrated approach to geological disposal of UK wastes containing carbon-14

Carbon-14 is a key radionuclide in the assessment of the safety of a geological disposal facility for radioactive waste because of the calculated assessment of the radiological consequences of gaseous carbon-14 bearing species [i]. It may be that such calculations are based on overly conservative assumptions and that better understanding could lead to considerably reduced assessment of the radiological consequences from these wastes. Alternatively, it may be possible to mitigate the impact of these wastes through alternative treatment, packaging or design options. The Radioactive Waste Management Directorate of the UK's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA RWMD) has established an integrated project team in which the partners are working together to develop a holistic approach to carbon-14 management in the disposal system [ii]. For a waste stream containing carbon-14 to be an issue: There must be a significant inventory of carbon-14 in the waste stream; and That waste stream has to generate carbon-14 bearing gas; and a bulk gas phase has to entrain the carbon-14 bearing gas: and these gases must migrate through the engineered barriers in significant quantities; and these gases must migrate through the overlying geological environment (either as a distinct gas phase or as dissolved gas); and these gases must interact with materials in the biosphere (i.e. plants) in a manner that leads to significant doses and risks to exposed groups or potentially exposed groups. The project team has developed and used this 'and' approach to structure and prioritise the technical work and break the problem down in a manageable way. We have also used it to develop our approach to considering alternative treatment, packaging and design options. For example, it may be possible to pre-treat some wastes to remove some of the inventory or to segregate other wastes so that they are removed from any bulk gas phase which might facilitate migration through the geosphere. Initially, the project team has undertaken a six month programme of work to examine the current understanding of these aspects and has captured this in the Phase 1 report [ii], in a modelling basis spreadsheet and in scoping assessments, which help us better understand the potential significance of carbon-14. Using the current modelling basis, but ignoring any potential benefits from the geosphere in retarding or preventing gas from reaching the surface, the calculated release of carbon- 14 is dominated by: corrosion of irradiated reactive metals (in the operational and early post-closure time frame); corrosion of irradiated stainless steel and leaching of irradiated graphite (in the longer term). The Phase 1 work has shown that there is considerable scope for reducing the calculated radiological consequence for these wastes and a roadmap has been developed for a second Phase of work. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2013

Assessment of External Hazards at Radioactive Waste and Used Fuel Management Facilities - 13505

One of the key lessons from the Fukushima accident is the importance of having a comprehensive identification and evaluation of risks posed by external events to nuclear facilities. While the primary focus has been on nuclear power plants, the Canadian nuclear industry has also been updating hazard assessments for radioactive waste and used fuel management facilities to ensure that lessons learnt from Fukushima are addressed. External events are events that originate either physically outside the nuclear site or outside its control. They include natural events, such as high winds, lightning, earthquakes or flood due to extreme rainfall. The approaches that have been applied to the identification and assessment of external hazards in Canada are presented and analyzed. Specific aspects and considerations concerning hazards posed to radioactive waste and used fuel management operations are identified. Relevant hazard identification techniques are described, which draw upon available regulatory guidance and standard assessment techniques such as Hazard and Operability Studies (HAZOPs) and 'What-if' analysis. Consideration is given to ensuring that hazard combinations (for example: high winds and flooding due to rainfall) are properly taken into account. Approaches that can be used to screen out external hazards, through a combination of frequency and impact assessments, are summarized. For those hazards that cannot be screened out, a brief overview of methods that can be used to conduct more detailed hazard assessments is also provided. The lessons learnt from the Fukushima accident have had a significant impact on specific aspects of the approaches used to hazard assessment for waste management. Practical examples of the effect of these impacts are provided. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2018

French Innovative Processes in the Field of Thermal Treatment For Decommissioning and Legacy Waste - 18085

In order to optimize decommissioning waste management and better anticipate related issues, French nuclear waste producers CEA and AREVA, and the French Agency in charge of radioactive waste disposal (ANDRA) have decided to collectively develop technologies mastering costs, schedules and dose uptake as well as optimizing waste volumes and repository safety. In this context, several innovative projects have emerged over the past few years to develop specific thermal treatment processes. This paper focus on four new processes, presenting their goals, technical descriptions and first experimental results. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2015

Development of characterization protocol for mixed liquid radioactive waste classification

Mixed liquid organic waste generated from health-care and research activities containing tritium, carbon-14, and other radionuclides posed specific challenges in its management. Often, these wastes become legacy waste in many nuclear facilities and being considered as ‘problematic’ waste. One of the most important recommendations made by IAEA is to perform multistage processes aiming at declassification of the waste. At this moment, approximately 3000 bottles of mixed liquid waste, with estimated volume of 6000 litres are currently stored at the National Radioactive Waste Management Centre, Malaysia and some have been stored for more than 25 years. The aim of this study is to develop a characterization protocol towards reclassification of these wastes. The characterization protocol entails waste identification, waste screening and segregation, and analytical radionuclides profiling using various analytical procedures including gross alpha/ gross beta, gamma spectrometry, and LSC method. The results obtained from the characterization protocol are used to establish criteria for speedy classification of the waste.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2019

Remote Collection of Radioactive Waste at Chalk River Laboratories - 19425

Remote handling of radioactive waste may be required during a variety of decommissioning and waste management activities. Based on the level of radiation and complexity of the application, the design, development and implementation of novel electromechanical systems can offer optimal solutions. At Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, current decommissioning and waste management projects routinely employ solutions including innovative and unique tools, test rigs, mock-ups, robotics, unmanned aerial vehicles, and automated systems. CNL ability to integrate an experienced team from a wide range of technical areas make such solutions possible. In this paper, we present an example of remotely controlled systems to collect highly radioactive waste materials from storage tanks at the Chalk River Laboratories. (authors)

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