Process Modeling and Analysis for Recovery of PuBe Sources at Los Alamos.

Kornreich, D. E. ; Parker, R. Y. ; Boerigter, S. T. ; Owens, S. D. ; Hatler, V. A.

Technical Information Center Oak Ridge Tennessee

关键词: Nuclear materials management;    Plutonium;    Materials recovery;    Computerized simulation;    LANL;   

RP-ID  :  DE2001767262

学科分类：工程和技术（综合）

美国|英语

来源: National Technical Reports Library

【 摘 要 】

Los Alamos National Laboratory maintains one of the premier plutonium processing facilities in the country. The plutonium facility supports several defense- and nondefense-related missions. This paper describes process-modeling efforts focused on the operations related to the Radioactive Source Recovery Program, which recovers the plutonium from plutonium-beryllium neutron sources. This program accomplishes at least two goals: it is evidence of good stewardship of a national resource, plutonium, and destroys a potential health hazard, the neutron source, by separating the plutonium from the beryllium in sources that are no longer being used in various industries or the military. We examine the processes related to source recovery operations in terms of throughput, ionizing radiation exposure to workers, and mass balances using two discrete-event simulation tools: ExtendTM, which is commercially available; and ProMoS, which is operations. in-house software specifically tailored for modeling nuclear-materials operations.