Measurement and modelling of sludge transport and separation processes

Sellafield Limited致力于加快其最高危险遗留工厂的退役速度。为此，必须以安全和有效的方式回收和处理放射性废物淤泥。这些都是极其复杂和多变的材料，因此能够在过程的关键部分对它们的行为进行建模是很重要的，这个项目开发了一种新的、经过大幅改进的方法。所有这类模型的开发和验证都需要数据，而这些数据一直无法获得。该项目还开发了一种在放射性环境中收集所需数据的方法。然后，同样的工具将允许对处理过程进行监控，以确保其在设计范围内运行，并对其进行优化，以从纳税人对处理过程的投资中获得最佳性能。然后，我们预计将在水处理和矿物加工等其他行业看到应用。

Sellafield Limited is committed to the acceleration of the decommissioning of its highest hazard legacy plants. To do that it is necessary to retrieve and process radioactive waste sludges in a safe and efficient manner. These are extremely complex and variable materials and so it is important to be able to model their behaviour in critical parts of the process, and this project develops a new and much improved way of doing that. All such models require data for their development and validation which has been unavailable. The project also develops a means of gathering the required data in a radioactive environment. The same tool will then allow the process to be monitored to provide assurance that it is operating within its design envelope and also to be optimised to get the best performance from the taxpayer's investment in the treatment processes. We then expect to see applications in other industries such as water treatment and mineral processing.