Characteristics of spent fuel and high-level waste

The Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) is responsible for the spent fuels and high-level wastes (HLWs) that will eventually be disposed of in a geologic repository. The major sources of these materials are commercial light water reactor (LWR) spent fuel and immobilized HLW. The latter includes both commercial (West Valley) and defense-related sources (Savannah River, Hanford, and Idaho). Other sources include non-LWR spent fuel and miscellaneous sources. Detailed characterizations are required for these materials. These characterizations include physical, chemical, and radiological properties; the last must take into account decay as a function of time. In addition, the present and future quantities of the various wastes must be known or projected. This information has been assembled in a characteristics data base, which provides data in four formats: hardcopy standard reports, user-oriented personal computer (PC) data bases, program-level PC data bases, and mainframe computer files. This data base is an integral part of the systems integration approach being used by OCRWM. As such, it provides a standard set of data to the various areas of responsibility within OCRWM, including storage, transportation, and geologic disposal. The data are for use in design studies, trade-off studies, and system optimization