AVS 62nd International Symposium & Exhibition
    Actinides and Rare Earths Focus Topic Thursday Sessions
       Session AC+AS+MI-ThM

Paper AC+AS+MI-ThM5
Shedding Light on Uranium Corrosion in Nuclear Waste Packages

Thursday, October 22, 2015, 9:20 am, Room 230A

Session: Nuclear Power and Waste Remediation
Presenter: Charilaos Paraskevoulakos, University of Bristol, UK
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Intermediate level waste (ILW) is encapsulated in grout and stored in stainless steel drums. A proportion of these have become a concern for the UK nuclear community, as significant distortion around the circumference of these drums has been observed. Distortion is ascribed to the generation of voluminous and potentially flammable corrosion products forming on uranium metal, e.g. uranium hydride. Thus potential oxygen influx caused by fracturing of canisters will threaten their suitability for waste disposal, potentially causing release of the encapsulated radioactive material or even ignition of the hydride. The association of the uranium corrosion mechanisms with the mechanical degradation of the encapsulants (stainless steel and grout), is the focus of the current project. Finite Element (FE) Modelling, accelerated uranium corrosion tests as well as diffraction and tomography using synchrotron X-Rays/gamma rays could be employed to investigate the durability of the ILW packages.