Planning for Receipt of Mk-18A Recovered Nuclear Material at Oak Ridge National Laboratory

摘要

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) ships and receives a wide variety of radioisotopes. These shipments will include the Mark-18A high-burnup targets, which are being processed at Savannah River National Laboratory to recover valuable isotopes that will then be shipped to ORNL for programmatic use. The Mark-18A targets will be processed to recover two products: a plutonium oxide stream and an oxide material that will contain the americium, curium, and lanthanides. A Type A shipping package has been designed, fabricated, and certified to transport the americium/curium/lanthanide oxide product in special form capsules. The package was designed with both gamma and neutron shielding for contents reading up to 5,000 R/hour. The plutonium stream will be shipped to ORNL in a Model 9975 Type B transport cask. A new content envelope for the Type B cask is being developed. This paper discusses the preparation underway at ORNL to receive the packages and transfer the material into hot cell processing and storage facilities for subsequent use in research and development applications and as feedstock for heavy actinide production.