Remote Area Modular Monitoring (RAMM) of Dry Cask Storage Systems

Argonne National Laboratory, under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy–Environmental Management, has been developing wireless monitoring and tracking technologies for packages of sensitive nuclear and radioactive materials in recent years. Two notable innovative products from these efforts are ARG-US (meaning “watchful guardian”) Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) for materials monitoring and ARG-US CommBox for transport tracking. The third and latest Argonne invention, ARG-US Remote Area Modular Monitoring (RAMM, patent pending), is keyed for monitoring critical nuclear facilities, including spent fuel dry casks in long-term storage. RAMM was conceived to mitigate the deficiencies in situational awareness noted after the Japanese Fukushima accident, when the landline-based surveillance assets were lost. Leveraging the ARG-US wireless technologies, Argonne designed RAMM to have a two-layered architecture: a wired Ethernet base layer and a wireless mesh network overlay. The networks link multiple, robustly built nodes, each having unique sensory and communication provisions for its assigned tasks. In case of a disruptive accident, the wireless assets switch on automatically and function autonomously on battery for weeks — the time when the plant data are needed the most for emergency response and management. When deployed in nuclear power plants, RAMM can augment the existing surveillance systems during normal operations and take over the surveillance tasks during and after an accident. When deployed in independent spent fuel storage installations, along with effective sensor and assured gateways, RAMM can be the primary monitoring system for the dry casks. Of all cask performance issues, canister leakage is probably the most serious; RAMM can be exceptionally helpful in this regard because it can be designed and configured to detect the onset of a cask leak.