Modelling radioactive waste disposal by penetrator experiments in the abyssal Atlantic Ocean

Abstract

The use of streamlined projectiles is a possible method of disposing of high-level radioactive waste in oceanic sediments1–3. But there is little information about the manner in which freely-falling projectiles impact on the ocean floor4–5. To correct this situation, the Engineering Studies Task Group of the OECD's Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) Seabed Working Group, through which research into the feasibility of high-level radioactive waste disposal in the sediments of the ocean floor is coordinated, recommended a programme of studies with instrumented model penetrators6. The first tests in this programme are reported here and were carried out on RRS Discovery cruise 134 in the Great Meteor East (GME) radioactive waste disposal study area in March 1983, as a collaborative experiment between the Building Research Establishment, the Joint Research Centre and the Institute of Oceanographic Sciences.