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Robotics & Remote Systems
The Mission of the Robotics and Remote Systems Division is to promote the development and application of immersive simulation, robotics, and remote systems for hazardous environments for the purpose of reducing hazardous exposure to individuals, reducing environmental hazards and reducing the cost of performing work.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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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!
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Latest News
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.
B. K. Sapra, Y. S. Mayya, Arshad Khan, Faby Sunny, Sunil Ganju, H. S. Kushwaha
Nuclear Technology | Volume 163 | Number 2 | August 2008 | Pages 228-244
Technical Paper | Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT08-A3983
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An experimental nuclear aerosol test facility has been built at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre for validating the aerosol behavior computer codes used in nuclear reactor safety assessment. Its essential components are the 10-m3 stainless steel test vessel, plasma torch aerosol generator, and aerosol instrumentation to study the aerosol characteristics. Studies have been conducted with metal/metal oxide aerosols in dry environments under varying turbulence conditions and the results have been compared with the predictions of NAUA (Mod 5) code. The code predictions were found to differ from the experimental observations. To explain the differences under calm conditions, a gravity-induced spatial stratification model was formulated and solved. It was found that NAUA prediction agrees fairly well with the depletion of total airborne mass given by this model. In the presence of turbulence, the code overestimated the airborne concentrations. This is attributed to the noninclusion of particle removal by inertial impaction. Accordingly, the deposition velocity formula used in the code was modified based on the Crump-Seinfeld approach. With this modification, the results of airborne mass depletion agreed quite well with the measured data. On the whole, the study provides validated modifications in the NAUA (Mod 5) code to include turbulence effects and a formulation of gravity-induced stratification of aerosols under calm conditions.