Intermediate-level wastes (ILW) include substantial quantities of fissile material and controls are required to ensure that its storage, transport and disposal does not present a nuclear criticality hazard. This paper describes the Radioactive Waste Management Directorate's research to develop package fissile material limits (in the form of screening levels) for four different categories of ILW, defined according to uranium or plutonium composition: (1) irradiated natural and slightly enriched uranium (uranium containing up to 1.9 wt.% 235 U); (2) low-enriched uranium (uranium containing up to 4 wt.% 235 U); (3) high-enriched uranium (uranium containing up to 100 wt.% 235 U); and (4) separated plutonium (plutonium containing up to 100 wt.% 239 Pu).The derivation of package screening levels was supported by neutron transport calculations that addressed conditions during waste package transport to a geological disposal facility (GDF), during the GDF operational phase and after GDF closure. The analysis included consideration of combinations of events and processes that could result in fissile material accumulation and concentration after GDF closure, when waste packages have deteriorated sufficiently for fissile material to be mobilized. The results of the calculations have provided input to Radioactive Waste Management Directorate's decision making on setting waste package screening levels.
Abslracl-This paper presents the results from an experimental investigation of plasma armature behaviour in the Culham Laboratory HTF rail launcher. The object of this work was to gain further insight into the conditions which lead
OBJECTIVESThe main objectives of this work were: --to the formation of secondary plasma arcs in the rail launcher. The railgun was operated with a 1 cm square bore formed . from glass reinforced epoxy insulators and either stainless steel or copper rails. A 1 MJ, 8 kV capacitor bank was used as the power supply; this was arranged in five 200 kJ modules. The modules were sequentially fired, to produce a current waveform approximating to a linear ramp in the railgun. B-dot probes were used to measure the behaviour of the plasma armatures in the launcher. A number of calibration checks were performed to assess the quality of the B-dot probe measurements, with regard to both spatial resolution and rail current measurement. Experimental results were obtained with projectile muzzle velocities ranging from 1.5 km/s to 3.0 kmls; two free arc shots also occurred during the test series. The results show that the launcher performed much better with copper rails than with stainless steel rails. The results also show that the glass epoxy insulators performed much better than the acetyl copolymer material previously used in HTF.
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