AN ACTIVE FACILITY MANAGEMENT STRATEGY FOR CONTAINMENT OF INTERMEDIATE LEVEL WASTE USING RISK-BASED SERVICE LIFE MODELLING OF REINFORCED CONCRETE

BNFL Environmental Services are planning the on-site storage of Intermediate Level Waste (ILW) arising from historic operations of the Hunterston ‘A’ Nuclear Power Station, West Kilbride, Ayrshire UK within a shielded store. This paper proposes a proactive strategy of durability management for reinforced concrete structures used in long-term storage (at least 100 years) of nuclear waste. A critique is presented on the common approach of durability design using Standards compared with an “active” performance-based risk approach. The active approach is thought to give greater flexibility to the decision-making process for management of concrete structures depending on the balance chosen between acceptable risk and maintenance philosophy. The management proposed uses a reliability-based risk approach to concrete degradation whose behavioural models are updated, with increasing accuracy, as new monitoring results from the structures are generated with time.

• ABSTRACT

• INTRODUCTION

• PROBABILISTIC MODELLING AND RELIABILITY THEORY

• PROBABILISTIC MODELLING

• INSPECTION AND MAINTENANCE

• CONCLUSIONS

• REFERENCES