Mobile unit for enclosing hot solid waste in a metal matrix

After termination of their service life, the sources of ionizing radiation are transported to special burial points of radioactive waste in pitlike repositories near the surface. The repositories are cylindrical 200-litter cavities of stainless steel and are situated at a depth of 6 m in a concrete pit. The pit is concrete enveloped. The spent sources enter the cavity via a curve loading a tube. Water was observed in repositories of this type; in a powerful radiation field (with up to 104 R/sec), water accelerates the corrosion of the shells of the sources and liberates radiolytic hydrogen. In order to obtain reliable isolation of the sources, a new technique of enclosing the sources in a metal matrix of low-melting metals (layer-by-layer and directly in the repository) has been used since 1986 in the Moscow Scientific Planning Department 'Radon'. This makes it possible to preserve the traditional burial of spent sources and, in addition, to use the radiation shielding of the repository proper. Investigations have shown that this technique is very reliable: There are no radiolytic gases, the radiation field and the temperature field in the repository are substantially reduced, and therefore the volume of the repositories is increased by a factor of 5-6. The total activity of the spent sources enclosed in a metal matrix in accordance with this technique amounted to about 500,000 Ci in test units and semi-industrial units