Product Traceability and Quality as Applied to the United States Transuranic andHigh-Level Waste Repository Programs

摘要

As with any repository program, predictions of the performance of a site oververy long time frames may often meet with skepticism from the public and decision-makers, such as regulatory and governmental agencies. Experience at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) and the Yucca Mountain Project (YMP) indicates that demonstrating the defensibility of data, conceptual models, computer codes, and numerical analyses is critical. Five overarching principles have been found to be the basis of a technically and publicly acceptable repository. The principles are traceability, transparency, reproducibility, retrievability, and reviews. This paper discusses how these principles are applied to the WIPP and the YMP. By setting up quality assurance and management controls (e.g., procedures, audits, peer reviews) these principles are implemented. Without successfidly applying these principles the WIPP would not have gone from research to industrial maturity. The YMP is ensuring that these are implemented for activities that support licensing. Any repository program concerned with demonstrating defensibility to the public and regulators would do well by incorporating traceability, transparency, reproducibility, retrievability, and reviews into their program.