Year
1996
Abstract
The management and disposition of transuranic (TRU) waste forms necessitates a determination of entrained TRU and associated radioactive material quantities as per National TRU Waste Characterization Program requirements. The technical justification and demonstration of a given nondestructive assay (NDA) method used to determine TRU mass and uncertainty in accordance with Program quality assurance objectives is a difficult task for many waste forms. Difficulties are typically founded in waste NDA methods that employ standards compensation techniques and/or the employment of simpli~ing assumptions regarding waste form configurations. The capability to determine and justify TRU mass and mass uncertainty can be enhanced through appropriate integration of waste container data/ information using expert system and empirical datadriven techniques in conjunction with conventional data acquisition and analysis methods. Presented is a Preliminaerxypertsystemframework that integrates the waste form data base, algorithmic techniques, statistical analyses, expert domain knowledge bases, and empirical artificial intelligence modules into a cohesive system. The framework design and bases in addition to module development activities are discussed.