| Advanced nuclear fuel cycles (AFC), which are actively investigated by the U.S. Department of Energy, require advanced separation of spent nuclear fuels to recover uranium and other material of concern or interest. As these materials are being separated, issues such as how to manage these materials and the wastes associated with the processes must be addressed. Integrated Waste Management (IWM) Concept was proposed for this purpose. IWM not only focuses on material separations but also examines waste management strategy to support the AFC. Many factors, such as volume of waste to be disposed, radiation dose and cost, are considered in optimizing the waste management strategy. In order to study the feasibility of the IWM concept, a thorough investigation must be performed.;The objective of this research is to perform a detailed examination on the waste management strategies form advanced separation processes utilized in the AFC. To achieve this goal, a computer code named Integrated Waste Management Simulation (IWMS) was developed. Tasks include: (1) approximation of the amount of individual nuclear wastes streams derived from the advanced separation process; (2) suggestion of the best waste management option for each stream, according to their inherent characteristics, such as radioactivity concentration, volume of final waste forms and radiation dose; and (3) estimation of the associated costs of the entire separation processes, as well as all corresponding waste treatment and handling processes.;The IWMS code was developed and successfully demonstrated by utilizing the UREX process as a case study. Due to the limited availability of the information needed for the analysis, assumptions were made using available data in order to demonstrate the code's capabilities. Sensitivity study on the UREX process input parameters, i.e. advanced separation processes costs, waste form manufacturing costs, waste disposal cost, decision weights and others, was also performed. The sensitivity study indicated that the results were sensitive and subject to the major input parameters being used. These findings suggested that the IWMS code could be useful to perform various studies, such as analyzing the waste management strategies of the UREX process against the UREX+ process or the UREX+1 process with the UREX+1A process. |
