Research Area: Waste and Fuel Management PI: Dr Sophie Rennie Contact details: Sophie.Rennie@bristol.ac.uk The Challenge A key problem facing the nuclear industry is the safe and efficient long-term storage of nuclear fuel. The long-lived radiation fields that result from highly radioactive fission products require spent nuclear fuel to be stored over timescales of tens of […]
Research Area: Waste and Fuel Management PI: Dr Chris Jones Contact details: cj0810@bristol.ac.uk The Challenge As of 2013 the UK currently stores 120,000 tonnes of Intermediate Level Waste (ILW) nationwide, with a further 190,000 tonnes predicted from decommissioning existing sites. This waste is reprocessed prior to storage in 500 litre stainless steel drums backfilled with […]
Research Area: Waste and Fuel Management PI: Mr Haris Paraskevoulakos Partners: Diamond Light Source Contact details: cp13846@bristol.ac.uk The Challenge Within the UK, nuclear waste is classified according to the levels of radioactivity in three groups: High Level Waste (HLW), Intermediate Level Waste (ILW) and Low Level Waste (LLW). ILW mostly consists of metallic fragments arisen […]
Research Area: Waste and Fuel Management PI: Dr Jaap Velthuis Contact details: Jaap.Velthuis@bristol.ac.uk The Challenge A lot of nuclear waste has been stored in drums and filled with concrete. Measuring the contents of small waste drums and of large volume nuclear waste packages, such as large spent fuel casks and large concrete waste packages with […]
Research Area: Waste and Fuel Management PI: Dr Chris Hutson Partners: Sellafield Contact details: Chris.Hutson@bristol.ac.uk The Challenge Decommissioning legacy nuclear facilities requires innovative characterisation technologies due to extreme levels of radioactive hazard, which destroys or saturates conventional detectors. Such technologies will be required to map multiple sources of radioactivity in facilities which have small access […]
Research Area: Waste and Fuel Management PI: Prof. Joe Quarini Partners: Agbar Environment Contact details: Joe.Quarini@bristol.ac.uk The Challenge One of the important aspects of nuclear decommissioning is minimising the resultant contaminated volumes. The use of water, acids, organic solvents in cleaning contaminated equipment results in difficult/embarrassing to handle volumes of active effluent streams. The problem […]
Research Area: Waste and Fuel Management PI: Dr Natalie Lord Funders: Posiva Oy, SKB Contact details: Natalie.Lord@bristol.ac.uk Project website: https://southwestnuclearhub.ac.uk/2017/12/04/looking-deep-into-the-future-for-radioactive-waste-disposal/ The Challenge Researchers in Geographical Sciences at University of Bristol have looked deep into the future with their Earth system models to assess the state of the globe over the course of the next million […]
Research Area: Robotics PI: Prof. Tony Pipe Partners: EDF Energy, KUKA Robotics, NNL, NDA, Network Rail, Schlumberger Contact details: Tony.Pipe@brl.ac.uk The Challenge Led by the University of Manchester, the programme of work will develop robotics technologies capable of operating autonomously and effectively within hazardous environments such as nuclear facilities. The vision for this Programme is […]
Research Area: Robotics PI: Prof. Tony Pipe and Prof. Alan Winfield Partners: Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, UWE, Bristol Robotics Laboratory Contact details: Tony.Pipe@brl.ac.uk Alan.Winfield@uwe.ac.uk The Challenge The project is focused on providing a reliable and low cost means of remotely characterising the NDA estate using rapidly deployed, reliable, low cost heterogeneous robot teams that work autonomously […]
Research Area: Monitoring PI: Prof. Paul Wilcox Partners: Inductosense Contact details: P.Wilcox@bristol.ac.uk The Challenge In the UK alone, over 20,000 Intermediate Level Waste (ILW) drums are currently stored in above ground facilities. Confirming the integrity of the drums while in storage over extended time periods is challenging due to the restricted access, and the desire […]
