Dose reduction through automation of nuclear weapons dismantlement and storage procedures at the Department of Energy`s Pantex Facility

Journal Article · Sat Jun 01 04:00:00 EDT 1996 · Health Physics

OSTI ID:393976

Thompson, D A; Poston, J W ^[1]

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1. Texas A&M Univ., College Station, TX (United States)

With the end of the Cold War and the subsequent break up of the Soviet Union, the number of weapons in the nuclear stockpile now greatly exceeds any foreseeable future need. To compensate for this excess an estimated 20,000 nuclear warheads have been earmarked for dismantlement and storage at the Department of Energy`s Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas. It is anticipated that the majority of these warheads will arrive at the Pantex facility by the year 2000. At that time, it is estimated that current dismantlement and inventory procedures will not be adequate to control worker radiation exposure within administrative and federal dose limits. To control these exposures alternate approaches to dismantlement and inventory must be developed. One attractive approach is to automate as many activities as possible, thus reducing worker exposure. To facilitate automation of dismantlement and storage procedures, current procedures were investigated in terms of collective dose to workers, time to completion, ease of completion, and cost of automation for each task. A cost-benefit comparison was then performed in order to determine which procedures would be most cost-effective to automate.

• OSTI ID: 393976
• Report Number(s): CONF-9607135--
• Journal Information: Health Physics, Journal Name: Health Physics Journal Issue: Suppl.6 Vol. 70; ISSN HLTPAO; ISSN 0017-9078
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

05 NUCLEAR FUELS
AUTOMATION
COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS
NUCLEAR WEAPONS DISMANTLEMENT
OCCUPATIONAL EXPOSURE
PANTEX PLANT
RADIATION DOSES
RADIATION PROTECTION