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Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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Glass strategy: Hanford’s enhanced waste glass program
The mission of the Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection (ORP) is to complete the safe cleanup of waste resulting from decades of nuclear weapons development. One of the most technologically challenging responsibilities is the safe disposition of approximately 56 million gallons of radioactive waste historically stored in 177 tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
ORP has a clear incentive to reduce the overall mission duration and cost. One pathway is to develop and deploy innovative technical solutions that can advance baseline flow sheets toward higher efficiency operations while reducing identified risks without compromising safety. Vitrification is the baseline process that will convert both high-level and low-level radioactive waste at Hanford into a stable glass waste form for long-term storage and disposal.
Although vitrification is a mature technology, there are key areas where technology can further reduce operational risks, advance baseline processes to maximize waste throughput, and provide the underpinning to enhance operational flexibility; all steps in reducing mission duration and cost.
D. Rochman, A. J. Koning
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 169 | Number 1 | September 2011 | Pages 68-80
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE10-66
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper presents a novel approach to combine Monte Carlo optimization and nuclear data to produce an optimal adjusted nuclear data file. We first introduce the methodology, which is based on the so-called “Total Monte Carlo” and the TALYS system. As an original procedure, not only a single nuclear data file is produced for a given isotope but virtually an infinite number, defining probability distributions for each nuclear quantity. Then, each of these random nuclear data libraries is used in a series of benchmark calculations. With a goodness-of-fit estimator, a best evaluation for that benchmark set can be selected. To apply the proposed method, the neutron-induced reactions on 239Pu are chosen. More than 600 random files of 239Pu are presented, and each of them is tested with 120 criticality benchmarks. From this, the best performing random file is chosen and proposed as the optimum choice among the studied random set.