Senior Design Success at Competition

A Senior Design team The project consisted of creating shipment schedules and transportation plans to move used nuclear fuel assemblies (UNFA) from multiple shutdown sites across the United States (at most 12) to a central repository site located in westTexas
(Waste Control Specialists, WCS), sponsored by AREVA. The twelve shut down sites evaulated were: Maine Yankee, Yankee Rowe, Connecticut Yankee, Humboldt Bay, Big Rock Point, Rancho Seco, Trojan, La Crosse, Zion, Crystal River, San Onofre. The main source of transportation that is Evaluation at the competition was based on a paper and presentation about the project.

The project consisted of developing the optimum routes using rail transportation from these facilities to the repository based on the following criteria: shortest route, avoidance of certain states and/or cities, minimum population density, etc. shipping costs labor, and required resources. Transportation routes were gathered from a GIS tool called “Transportation Routing Analysis Geographic Information System (TRAGIS)”, which is sponsored by the US Department of Energy (DOE) and operated and maintained by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The analysis included shipment from one site at a time as well as from multiple sites simultaneously.

The project team consisted of Richard Alaimo, Justin Ervin, Kevin Wong, William Cole and Hanna Tannous.