Criticality Safety Analysis for Remote Handled TRU Waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

Technical Report · Fri Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 1988

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6709247· OSTI ID:6709247

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is a facility designed to store transuranic (TRU) waste underground in a mined salt bed. All fissile nuclides except U/sup 235/ are considered TRU nuclides. This report presents the results of the nuclear criticality analysis for Remote-Handled (RH) TRU waste stored at the WIPP site. The RH waste material will be contained in steel canisters that are five feet or ten feet long. Each ten foot canister is capable of holding three 55 gallon drums of waste material. The five foot canisters are to be welded together to form one ten foot long canister. In general the fissile waste material is mainly surface contamination on clothing, wipes, wrappings, tools, etc., or mixed in a borosilicate glass matrix or concrete. Other fissile material may be contained in absorbent mixtures. As a result, the fissile material will typically be spread over a large fraction of the volume in most of the waste storage canisters. Typical isotopic content of the fissile/other radioactive material is shown in Table 1-1. This analysis will analyze the RH waste storage and handling configurations at the WIPP site to show that up to 600 grams of fissile material per ten foot canister can be received and stored at the site without criticality safety concerns.

• Research Organization: Westinghouse Electric Corp., Carlsbad, NM (United States). Waste Isolation Div.
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP)
• DOE Contract Number: AC04-86AL31950
• OSTI ID: 6709247
• Report Number(s): DOE/WIPP--88-020; ON: DE89002768
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

052002* -- Nuclear Fuels-- Waste Disposal & Storage
053000 -- Nuclear Fuels-- Environmental Aspects
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
ALPHA-BEARING WASTES
CONTAINERS
CRITICALITY
EVALUATION
FUNCTIONAL MODELS
GEOLOGIC DEPOSITS
MANAGEMENT
MATERIALS
NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
NUCLEAR FACILITIES
Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP)
PILOT PLANTS
RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS
RADIOACTIVE WASTE FACILITIES
RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT
RADIOACTIVE WASTES
Remote-Handled (RH)
SALT DEPOSITS
SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS
UNDERGROUND FACILITIES
US DOE
US ORGANIZATIONS
VOLUME
WASTE MANAGEMENT
WASTES
WIPP
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP)