Three case studies to validate the project’s results
Partners in the project will carry out three major reference use cases, which a focus on quantifying the productivity of decommissioning physical activities and identifying how productivity is affected by specific conditions.
More details on the case studies will follow as progress is made on this task.
Case 1: Decommissioning of a back/end fuel cycle and/or research facility
The first use case would consist of an exercise of characterisation of liquid wastes or sludge in tanks available at the Ispra site of JRC.
Case 2: Decommissioning of a nuclear reactor
This use case involves performing the characterisation of a nuclear reactor’s biological shield, using samples from the experimental ESSOR reactor (1968-1983), located on the Italian site of JRC-Ispra, and from the Belgian Reactor 3 (BR3) of SCK/CEN. As a powerful source of radiation and a potential risk of exposure for technicians, a nuclear reactor must have a shielding system: water, concrete or graphite materials.
Case 3: Post accidental land remediation
This last case study involves the analysis of contaminated soils after a nuclear accident. Samples of low-contamination soils will be compared by the CEA to highly radioactive samples.
An economic analysis
Investigations into possible cost optimisations linked to the deployment of INSIDER techniques and methodologies will be performed. Indeed, they are expected to improve the efficiency of the characterisation step, resulting in possible time and cost savings. This would in turn generate practical benefits for operational actors and ultimately contribute to alleviate the financial burden of D&D.
The most appropriate use case for this exercise will be selected to model the potential economic impact of deploying INSIDER methodologies, with possible variants in the scenarios.
