Actinide Science and Engineering Testbed
Savannah River National Laboratory
ASET – Actinide Science and Engineering Testbed
Stewarding Engineering Scale Nuclear Materials Processing
Opportunities to utilize nuclear materials – power production, medical procedures, industrial applications – require facilities and a knowledgeable workforce specialized in nuclear materials or actinides, such as uranium and plutonium. While enabling very positive civilian uses, actinides are also critical components in manufacturing nuclear weapons.
SRNL’s Actinide Science and Engineering Testbed, or ASET, is an adaptable nuclear facility with shielded cells, laboratory spaces and analytical capabilities enabling long-term innovative nuclear energy, nonproliferation, and safeguards science and technologies. ASET includes capabilities for collaborators to scale-up benchtop processes allowing understanding of engineering scale operations while providing novel opportunities for workforce development.
Objectives
- Equip the DOE complex to allow for engineering scale nuclear material processing relevant to nonproliferation and civilian uses of nuclear materials.
- Develop subject-matter experts that are able to effectively learn, be informed by, and experiment with U.S. and International processing activities spanning weapons production through nuclear energy.
- Integrate a multi-disciplinary S&T agenda that engages a diverse workforce across the U.S complex to develop baseline skills that can evolve and grow into a variety of nonproliferation missions.
SRNL Unique Infrastructure and Capabilities
- Allows access to historic nuclear fuels from a wide variety of research and production reactors along with nuclear targets such as those from plutonium production reactors
- Provides engineering scale processing to provide opportunities to gain information not currently available from modeling or lab scale operations; enabling information to better understand closure of the fuel cycle, separations technologies and processes for detection
- Enables workforce development efforts across areas of hands-on processes, computational modeling, monitoring, and other key areas
- Staffing expertise that supported Savannah River Site H- and F-Canyon operations for past several decades
- Irradiated spent nuclear fuel (SNF) at Savannah River Site L-Reactor basin (X-10 slugs, MTR, NRX HEU) including shipping casks, fuel handling, and other SNF special handling infrastructure
- Existing SRNL infrastructure (hot cells, intermediate level cells, glove boxes, specialized equipment) with the unique capability to manipulate substantial amounts of material
- Specialized instrumentation to analyze chemical forms and radioisotopes
- Expertise gained from the NA-ESH-10 sponsored MK-18A Target Recovery Program; processing Pu targets to recover Pu-244
Mentoring by nuclear processing and nonproliferation experts and enabled by modern capabilities, SRNL’s ASET will provide the workforce of the future with the knowledge required to meet future challenges.
Engagement with SRNL thought leaders and experts across areas of hands-on processes, modeling, monitoring, and other key areas will ensure the expertise needed to answer critical questions regarding potential proliferators, future processes and best paths forward.
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Contact Information
Robert Minnick
803.335.6333
robert.minnick@srnl.doe.gov
Jack Dewes
803.679.7314
jack.dewes@srnl.doe.gov