Total system performance assessment - 1995: An evaluation of the potential Yucca Mountain repository
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is currently investigating the feasibility of permanently disposing the nation`s commercial high-level radioactive wastes (in the form of spent fuel from the over 100 electric power-generating nuclear reactors across the U.S.) and a portion of the defense high-level radioactive wastes (currently stored at federal facilities around the country) in the unsaturated tuffaceous rocks at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Quantitative predictions based on the most current understanding of the processes and parameters potentially affecting the long-term behavior of the disposal system are used to assess the ability of the site and its associated engineered designs to meet regulatory objectives of the US NRC and the US EPA. The evaluation of the ability of the overall system to meet the performance objectives specified in the applicable regulatory standards has been termed total system performance assessment (TSPA). Total system performance assessments require the explicit quantification of the relevant processes and process interactions. In addition assessments are useful to help define the most significant processes, the information gaps and uncertainties and therefore the additional information required for more robust and defensible assessment of the overall performance. The aim of any total system performance assessment is to be as complete and reasonably conservative as possible and to assure that the descriptions of the predictive models and parameters are sufficient to ascertain their accuracy. Total system performance assessments evolve with time. Previous iterations of total system performance assessment of the Yucca Mountain site and associated engineered barriers have been conducted in 1991 and 1993.
- Research Organization:
- TRW Environmental Safety Systems, Inc., Las Vegas, NV (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC01-91RW00134
- OSTI ID:
- 196471
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/RW/00134-T21; ON: DE96006001; TRN: 96:008415
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: Nov 1995
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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