Year
1998
Abstract
The complete characterization of waste drums is a daunting task that challenges the most sophisticated non-intrusive techniques. It has been recognized that no single technique can successfully address the range of performance needs for the diversity and quantities of waste that must be permanently disposed of in coming years. While these techniques are able to demonstrate sensitivity to certain physical characteristics, each suffers from shortcomings in some combination of accuracy, precision, speed, cost, and sensitivity to other important attributes. This situation has been partly responsible for the absence of defined standard processes across the DOE complex, the low processing capacity and high costs for shippers and receivers, and for significant waivers to parts of waste acceptance criteria. Pulsed Fast Neutron Analysis (PFNA), which has been developed and demonstrated mainly for security applications, provides a direct and non-intrusive means of determining three-dimensional distributions for many elements. This information is complementary to existing NDA techniques, which are usually unable to assess material and elemental constituents of interest such as combustibles, and mercury. The resulting matrix can be used to correct important systematic errors that affect established NDA techniques. Also, the elemental distribution can be used for feed-forward process control, e.g., thermal or chemical waste treatment. The paper will discuss these aspects of PFNA=s capabilities, and how integrating existing technologies onto a PFNA platform can significantly improve the completeness of waste-characterization, while simultaneously improving processing capacity and reducing per-sample costs.