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2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
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Groundwater data pave the way for Environmental Management Disposal Facility at Oak Ridge
Results of a two-year study of groundwater levels at the site of the planned Environmental Management Disposal Facility (EMDF) in Oak Ridge, Tenn., have been released, revealing that the levels fell at a slower-than-expected rate. The collection of data on groundwater levels during two wet seasons, conducted by the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management and the contractor United Cleanup Oak Ridge, formed the core of a groundwater field demonstration study which will help inform the final design of the EMDF landfill.
Scott M. Richards (Univ of Tennessee), Brandon R. Grogan (ORNL)
Proceedings | 16th International High-Level Radioactive Waste Management Conference (IHLRWM 2017) | Charlotte, NC, April 9-13, 2017 | Pages 899-905
The Inverse Depletion Theory (INDEPTH) code is one of the tools being used to analyze the traditional nondestructive assay (NDA) measurements and verify the initial enrichment, burnup, and cooling time values of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) declared by facilities. The INDEPTH code attempts to reconstruct the initial enrichment and operating history by using the Oak Ridge Isotope Generation (ORIGEN) code to simulate irradiation and cooling of the fuel. This work examined the sensitivity of INDEPTH results to variations in irradiation conditions. Three types of measured data were simulated to identify possible sources of systematic error. An absolute gamma measurement with a gross neutron count produced more accurate answers than either the relative gamma measurement or the absolute gamma measurement by itself in most cases. However, long shutdown times between irradiation cycles were found to greatly affect the accuracy, with the absolute gamma plus gross neutron counts case losing the most accuracy. In these cases, the added neutron data either did not significantly improve the results or made them worse.