Long-Term Safe Storage and Disposal of Spent Sealed Radioactive Sources in Borehole Type Repositories

摘要

Russian Federation has the leading experience in applying borehole storage/disposal method for SRS. A new immobilization technology for sources being disposed of in underground repositories was mastered by 1986 and since then it is used in the country. This method uses all advantages of borehole type repositories supplementing them with metal encapsulation of sources. Sources being uniformly allocated in the volume of underground vessel are fixed in the metal block hence ensuring long-term safety. The dissipation of radiogenic heat from SRS is considerably improved, radiation fields are reduced, and direct contact of sources to an environment is completely eliminated. The capacity of a typical borehole storage/disposal facility is increased almost 6 times applying metal immobilization. That has made new technology extremely favourable economically. The metal immobilization of SRS is considered as an option in Belarus and Ukraine as well as Bulgaria. Immobilization of sources in metal matrices can be a real solution for retrieval of SRS from inadequate repositories.