Current Initiatives to Reduce Analytical Expenses at SRS's H Canyon

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) and the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) have embarked on a three-initiative project to reduce analytical expenses for process control, nuclear & criticality safety, and nuclear material control & accountability concentrations, isotopics, and other chemical attributes of solutions containing special nuclear materials in the Savannah River Site’s (SRS’s) H Canyon, a nuclear material transformation facility. Two of the initiatives were recommendations resulting from SRNL’s pilot Collaborative Innovation (COIN), a two month sequestration of subject matter experts charged with increasing H Canyon’s throughput by 50%. This paper will discuss the motivation, regulatory requirements, uncertainties, fit for purpose, status, interrelationships, and plans for each of the three initiatives being pursued: (1) ‘Knowledge of the Process’ is a COIN recommendation that will be a paradigm shift that would result in fewer samples to be analyzed by taking credit for basic chemistry and physics principles, (2) On-line Monitoring is a COIN recommendation that will replace a significant number of sampling points with on-line instrumentation that will enable both fewer samples and increased material transformation, and (3) TIMS Alternatives will replace all low to medium consequence thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) analyses with methods that are less time consuming, of acceptable uncertainties, and less expensive to maintain and replace.