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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

DOE progress in assessing the long term performance of waste package materials

Conference ·
OSTI ID:60184
Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA)[1], the US Dept. of Energy (DOE) is conducting activities to select and characterize candidate sites suitable for the construction and operation of a geologic repository for the disposal of high-level nuclear wastes. DOE is funding three first repository projects: Basalt Waste Isolation Project, BWIP; Nevada Nuclear Waste Isolation Project, NNWSI; and Salt Repository Project Office, SRPO. It is essential in the licensing process that DOE demonstrate to the NRC that the long-term performance of the materials and design will be in compliance with the requirements of 10 CFR 60.113 on substantially complete containment within the waste packages for 300 to 1000 years and a controlled release rate from the engineered barrier system (EBS) for 10,000 years of 1 part in 10{sup 5} per year for radionuclides present in defined quantities 100 years after permanent closure. Obviously, the time spans involved make it impractical to base the assessment of the long term performance of waste package materials on real time, prototypical testing. The assessment of performance will be implemented by the use of models that are supported by real time field and laboratory tests, monitoring, and natural analog studies. Each of the repository projects is developing a plan for demonstrating long-term waste package material performance depending on the particular materials and the package-perturbed, time-dependent environment under which the materials must function. An overview of progress in each of these activities for each of the projects is provided in the following.
Research Organization:
Argonne National Lab., IL (United States); Dept. of Energy, Washington, DC
OSTI ID:
60184
Report Number(s):
CONF-861207--Pt.1; ON: TI87009337
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English