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Nuclear Installations Safety
Devoted specifically to the safety of nuclear installations and the health and safety of the public, this division seeks a better understanding of the role of safety in the design, construction and operation of nuclear installation facilities. The division also promotes engineering and scientific technology advancement associated with the safety of such facilities.
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Retrieval of nuclear waste canisters from a borehole
Borehole disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level waste (HLW) uses off-the-shelf directional drilling technology developed and commercialized by the oil and gas sectors. It is a technology that has been gaining traction in recent years in the nuclear industry. Disposal can be done in one or more boreholes (including an array) drilled into suitable sedimentary, igneous, or metamorphic host rocks. Waste is encapsulated in specialized corrosion-resistant canisters, which are placed end to end in disposal sections of relatively small-diameter boreholes that have been cased and fluid-filled. After emplacement, the vertical access hole is plugged and backfilled as an engineered barrier.
C.E. Murphy Jr., L.R. Bauer, D.D. Hoel
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 21 | Number 2 | March 1992 | Pages 489-493
Safety; Measurement and Accountability; Operation and Maintenance; Application | doi.org/10.13182/FST92-A29794
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
During 35 years of operation of the Savannah River Site (SRS) there have been a small number of inadvertent tritium releases to the atmosphere. After detection of the releases by stack monitors, field crews were dispatched to determine the concentrationoftritiumintheenvironment The objective of the measurements was to verify environmental concentrations calculated by dose assessment models. Airsamplers were used to verify the concentration levels and tritium fonns during the plume passage. It was not feasible to take enough samples in the plume path to determine the two-dimensional disthbution of tritium concentration in the plume. However, the ground level disthbution was very well reflected in vegetation samples. Therefore, it is usually possible to determine plume shape, plume width, and the relative maximum concentration as the plume moves downwind from the vegetation samples. In eight of the nine releases studied, the monitoring data allowed comparison with atmospheric transport models.