The radioactive waste containers, containing different radioactive materials, have to be characterized before their final disposal. Destructive methods, although being the most precise, are also the most expensive and not the easiest ones from the radioprotection point of view. In this situation, high resolution gamma spectrometry proved to be a reliable method for the non destructive assay met...

More than 167,000 m of mixed waste, waste that contains both chemically hazardous and radioactive components, are in the known inventory at DOE sites that formarly produced nuclear defense materials. The inventory contains both mixed low level wastes (MLLW) and mixed transuranic wastes (MTRU). Site cleanup and decommissioning activities during the coming years are expected to nearly double this...

The liquid wastes produced during the processing of radioactive materials at the Savannah River Site were initially stored in large underground tanks constructed of carbon steel. These liquid wastes were generated from the Purex process (for producing plutonium) and the HM process (for producing tritium). The liquid wastes were designated as high-level wastes and lowlevel wastes. As the product...

The Department of Energy’s River Protection Project (RPP) is tasked with retrieving highly radioactive waste from Hanford double-shell and single-shell tanks to provide feed for vitrification for long-term storage. Approximately 330,000 metric tons of sodium-rich radioactive waste originating from separation of plutonium from irradiated uranium fuel is stored in 177 underground tanks at Hanford...

FOREWORD Plans for disposing of radioactive waste have raised a number of unique and mostly philosophical problems, mainly due to the very long timescales which have to be considered. While there is general agreement on disposal concepts and on the approach to establishing that disposal facilities are safe, consensus on a number of issues remains to be achieved. To assist in promoting discussio...

Assay of the radioactive content of waste drums is important for inventory and waste disposal purposes. The sampling of the drum content is a difficult, time and labor consuming procedure, involving special radiation protection considerations. On the other hand the characterization of waste drums containing radioactivity by measuring the drum as a whole (without opening) offers overall simplici...

This paper presents a large-scale modeling study characterizing fluid flow and tracer transport in the unsaturated zone of Yucca Mountain, Nevada, a potential repository site for storing high-level radioactive waste. The study has been conducted using a three-dimensional numerical model, which incorporates a wide variety of field data and takes into account the coupled processes of flow and tra...

No public policy issue has been as difficult as high-level nuclear waste. Debates continue regarding Yucca Mountain as a disposal site, and-more generally-the appropriateness of geologic disposal and the need to act quickly. Previous research has focused on possible social, political, and economic consequences of a facility in Nevada. Impacts have been predicted to be potentially large and to e...