RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PLANNING IN SUPPORT OF
DNFSB RECOMMENDATION 94-1
Finis H. Southworth, Terry. R. Creque, Bobby R. Seidel,
C. Robert Kenley, and Nathan A. Chipman
LMITCO
Bobby R. Seidel
ANL-W
ABSTRACT
This paper reflects progress of the Research and Development Plan, prepared by the Technical Advisory Panel to the Plutonium Focus Area, in guiding stabilization R&D in support of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Recommendation 94-1.
The initial R&D Plan was developed by the Research Committee to the Nuclear Materials Stabilization Task Group (NMSTG) in late 1995. The Research Committee was established in March 1995 with the purpose of preparing a research plan as a part of the DOE response to the DNFSB Recommendation 94-1. The plan was focused on addressing the core program needs and the identified technology gaps of the nuclear materials stabilization program. A systems engineering approach was applied to the plan and a technique of technical maturity assessment, used by the aerospace industry, was modified to meet DOE needs.
Technical maturity assessment was applied to evaluate the relative technical maturity of various stabilization technologies under development throughout the DOE complex that could stabilize the materials identified by the DNFSB Recommendation 94-1. The information is used by the NMSTG to task and fund the Los Alamos National Laboratory to carry out the necessary core and applied technology research. The Research Committee disbanded in 1995. The Plutonium Focus Area was chartered in October 1995 to enable progress in stabilizing actinide-containing residue materials. The Technical Advisory Panel was given the responsiblitiy for updating the R&D Plan annually.
Three revisions of the R&D Plan have now been completed and some distinct information has been developed on process maturities. Various stabilization technologies were assessed annually over the three years for maturity and availability for use in stabilizing nuclear materials. After three years of assessments, several of the technologies are now components of operational systems. The R&D Plan has been an effective mechanism to assess technology development and provide guidance for R&D funding.
INTRODUCTION
On May 26, 1994, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) issued Recommendation 94-1, expressing the Board’s concern about the safety of Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear materials. The DNFSB recommended that DOE stabilize and repackage high-risk material within 2-3 years and the remaining materials within 8 years. DOE accepted DNFSB Recommendation 94-1 on August 3, 1994. After establishing the Nuclear Materials Stabilization Task Group (NMSTG), DOE issued an implementation plan to address DNFSB concerns ("Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Recommendation 94-1 Implementation Plan," February 28, 1995).
The DNFSB called for establishment of a research program to fill gaps in the technology base needed to accomplish the stabilization. DOE committed to a research and development (R&D) program to support the technology needs for converting and stabilizing its nuclear materials for safe storage. An R&D program plan was prepared by the NMSTG-Chartered Research Committee and published in November, 1995. With that publication, the Research Committee was disbanded. To ensure that technology needs for stabilization continued to be addressed and that the R&D Plan was appropriately updated, the Plutonium Focus Area (PFA) was established by DOE in October 1995 under the DOE Idaho Operations Office, with support from Lockheed Martin Idaho Technologies Company (LMITCO) and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL). The PFA tasked its Technical Advisory Panel (TAP) composed of team members from different Department of Energy sites and from different engineering and science disciplines to update and revise the November 1995 R&D Plan in 1996 and 1997. Reviews and new technical maturity assessments have recently been chartered for the 1998 revision.
This paper presents an overview of the R&D Plan, the technical maturity assessment method that was performed, and the general conclusions gained by using the process.
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PLAN OVERVIEW
The R&D Plan was prepared in response to the Research Committee’s charter by the Nuclear Materials Stabilization Task Group: (1) to assess the nuclear materials stabilization program as outlined in the implementation plan, (2) to formulate an R&D Plan to address the technology and core program needs of the stabilization program, and (3) to prepare tasking directives defining R&D activities required to accomplish program objectives.
The Research Committee used numerous techniques to formulate the original plan. Source documents defining R&D in support of stabilization (e.g. DOE Site Implementation Plans and Site Integrated Stabilization Management Plans) were reviewed, visits to major sites such as Savannah River, Los Alamos and Hanford were conducted, and regular coordination meetings with other technical experts rounded out the approach.
The Committee decided to specifically address five of the six material categories discussed in the original 94-1 Implementation Plan. (Figure 1)
Fig. 1. Six Categories of Materials
Spent nuclear fuel stabilization was not included in the plan because there was a specific technical working group charted through the Office of Spent Fuel Management working on all issues relating to SNF.
The original committee selected to develop the first R&D Plan consisted of eight subject area experts representing five national laboratories and three production sites and two independent consultants. Additionally, experts from various other DOE offices were augmented as needed. The committee reported directly to the Director of the Nuclear Materials Stabilization Task Group.
The committees approach to the plan was to focus on existing technologies and technologies currently under development and to determine their applicability to the DOE three-year commitments as shown in Table I.
Table I. DOE Three Year Stabilization Commitments
Additionally, the Committee developed R&D requirements to address the technology needs for DOE’s eight-year commitments.
The Research Committee first began by identifying all the requirements for baseline technology for all nuclear materials encompassed in the DNFSB recommendation. The requirements, once identified, then became the baseline for all technologies necessary for nuclear material stabilization. Gaps were identified by comparing baseline requirements with existing technology development programs. Technology gaps identified in the process were then developed into site tasking statements to direct research.
As a part of the R&D Plan development, a technology maturity assessment was undertaken to evaluate the relative maturity of technologies then under development at various DOE sites. The technical maturity assessment was a systems engineering effort to determine whether specific technologies designated as baseline were sufficiently mature to meet the established time schedules. Additionally, whether backup technologies should be pursued to ensure a technology would be available in a timely manner. Technical maturity scores were developed based on the judgement of subject area experts and the data available at that time. Scores were updated with subsequent annual R&D Plan revisions.
TECHNICAL MATURITY ASSESSMENT METHODOLOGY
The TAP took responsibility for the R&D Plan after the Research Committee disbanded in late 1995. Key to the R&D Plan was the technical maturity evaluation of baseline and backup technologies for the stabilization effort. The technical maturity assessment approach was developed initially in 1995 by the Research Committee. It was an adaptation of an aerospace systems engineering approach, and was completed by the committee at its first three meetings. After developing the assessment criteria, technical experts from the committee performed scoring and brought the results to committee meetings for peer review.
Technical maturity was assessed for seven individual parameters: requirements maturity (RM), process maturity (PM), hardware equipment maturity (EQ), facility readiness (FAC), operational safety readiness (SAFT), personnel resource status (PER), and schedule status (SCH). A parameter score of 0 means that a technology is in use; and a score 10 is means that it is in pre-conceptual phase.
An example of adapting an aerospace systems engineering parameter to nuclear engineering is shown in Table 2. The progression from concept to operational readiness is a typical complete cycle; however, steps can be skipped if evidence allows developers to do so. In nuclear engineering, nonradioactive cold surrogate materials often are used to perform feasibility studies and prototyping, such as the use of thorium or cerium in place of plutonium. The emphasis on requiring prototyping to be complete at the end-use site was added by the TAP in 1996 as a result of application of the Technical Maturity model by trade studies on other nuclear material residues.
Table II. Adaptation of Aerospace Process Maturity Assessment Scale
to Nuclear Engineering
Typically, a process developed at a research laboratory requires extensive effort to be implemented at an end-use site. For this reason, the trade study teams recommended and the TAP formally accepted this added emphasis in the model.
In a similar fashion to process maturity, the other six individual maturity parameter scales were defined, and a weighted average was taken to produce an overall score from 0 to 10. Again, an overall Technical Maturity of 10 means that the process is in a pre-conceptual stage. A score of 0 represents an operational system that meets all requirements. The weightings used were 1, 3, or 9 following the standard low, medium, or high of the "correlation to success" model used in quality function deployment.
The original 1995 R&D Plan provided a technology maturity assessment for 78 total technologies (baseline and backup). The 1996 R&D Plan reduced the 78 technologies to 38 baseline or competitive alternatives. In the latest revision of the R&D Plan, that number has been reduced from 38 to 34 that are needed.
The 1995 R&D Plan contained 18 recommendations based on technology gaps, maturity score anomalies, or other issues. Most of those recommendations (16) were closed by the publication of the 1997 plan.
The 1996 R&D Plan produced eight recommendations, four of which were closed and two were underway to closure by the publication of the 1997 plan. Two recommendations from the 1996 plan remain open with no closure plans.
The 1997 R&D Plan developed programmatic risk assessments as a follow on to the technical maturity assessments for all baseline and competitive alternative technologies. Programmatic risk assessments were based on the technical risk and the R&D need date of each technology in question.
Table 3 shows the 34 baseline or competitive alternative technologies highlighted in the 1997 R&D Plan by programmatic risk.
Table III. Baseline and Competitive Alternative Technologies
Programmatic
Risk by Category
In the conclusions of the 1997 R&D Plan only two high risk technologies remain; the wash and dry process at RFETS for plutonium combustibles, and the vitrification/agglomeration process at RFETS for plutonium ash.
Eight medium risk technologies are present in the 1997 plan with respect to meeting 94-1 milestones. These are the vertical calciner and ion exchange for plutonium solutions at Hanford; plutonium salt distillation at RFETS; preparation for shipment at RFETS for SS&C; Hanford pyrolysis; and direct fluorination and charcoal bed removal at Oak Ridge for highly enriched uranium.
CAN TECHNICAL MATURITY ASSESSMENT RESULTS BE CORRELATED
WITH TECHNOLOGY OPERATIONAL AVAILABILITY ?
A total of five technologies have progressed from R&D to deployment since the first R&D Plan was published in 1995. The technical maturity assessment scores for these five technologies can be correlated to the time from when the assessment was completed to the actual time that technology became operational. The in-depth discussion of the process is contained in a paper to be presented later in 1998. Using a linear regression technique, the slope of the estimated line can be used to predict when a given technology will be ready for operations. Roughly, it shows that technical maturity score divided by 3 is equal to the number of years until operational availability.
By using the regression approach, some predictions can be made about time to reach operational deployment based on the assessment of technical maturity for a given technology.
CONCLUSIONS
The R&D Plan, as a tool to assess technology maturity, identify gaps between stabilization needs and ongoing technology development, and to provide a basis for funding decisions, has been a valuable asset. Originally the technical maturity and risk assessment method was used only as a quantitative rank ordering technique to trade-off competing technologies and to identify programmatic risks. With completion of technology development and operational deployment, the data shows that the technical maturity assessment by a team of experts can be a powerful tool for predicting both time until operational availability for technologies, and for assessing the programmatic risk for technologies.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was performed under the Plutonium Focus Area of the DOE Idaho Operations Office under contract DE-AC07-94ID-13223. Appreciation goes to Mr. W. L. Scott, DOE-ID, Manager, Plutonium Focus Area for his interest and leadership of the PFA. Additionally, our greatest respect and appreciation goes to the members of the TAP.
REFERENCES