ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Division Spotlight
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
Latest Magazine Issues
May 2024
Jan 2024
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
June 2024
Nuclear Technology
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.
W. H. Hedley, F. S. Adams, G. E. Gibbs, D. R. Ming, K. J. Myers, J. E. Wells
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 21 | Number 2 | March 1992 | Pages 678-682
Safety and Measurement (Monitoring) | doi.org/10.13182/FST92-A29825
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A probabilistic risk assessment was made on the TERF process in order to establish its expected degree of reliability and to locate places in the system which could be improved by revision of the equipment or the operating procedures. The equipment design of the TERF was evaluated using a fault tree study. The probability of human failures was then evaluated by adding their probabilistic effects to the fault tree and then reevaluating it. It was found that 1) the TERF system is expected to be very reliable, with an annual expected downtime of only 2.35 hours, 2) the expected downtime comes almost entirely from process equipment failure rather than human errors, and 3) that certain equipment changes could be made that increased the system reliability. These equipment changes included 1) making provision for blocking off certain automatic control valves with more reliable manual valves to facilitate their repair and 2) making the two sources of power to the TERF totally independent of each other.