Analysis of the application of decontamination technologies to radioactive metal waste minimization using expert systems

Radioactive metal waste makes up a significant portion of the waste currently being sent for disposal. Recovery of this metal as a valuable resource is possible through the use of decontamination technologies. Through the development and use of expert systems a comparison can be made of laser decontamination, a technology currently under development at Ames Laboratory, with currently available decontamination technologies for applicability to the types of metal waste being generated and the effectiveness of these versus simply disposing of the waste. These technologies can be technically and economically evaluated by the use of expert systems techniques to provide a waste management decision making tool that generates, given an identified metal waste, waste management recommendations. The user enters waste characteristic information as input and the system then recommends decontamination technologies, determines residual contamination levels and possible waste management strategies, carries out a cost analysis and then ranks, according to cost, the possibilities for management of the waste. The expert system was developed using information from literature and personnel experienced in the use of decontamination technologies and requires validation by human experts and assignment of confidence factors to the knowledge represented within