Logistics simulation of a remediation effort for a hypothetical radiological contamination scenario

• Published in: Journal of environmental radioactivity Vol. 255; no. C; p. 107017
• Main Authors: Hepler, Katherine, Kaminski, Michael D., VanderZee, Evan, Van Groningen, Charles, Magnuson, Matthew
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.12.2022; Elsevier
• ISSN: 0265-931X; 1879-1700
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvrad.2022.107017

To mitigate the effects following a large-scale nuclear or radiological material release in an urban environment and to expedite recovery, the Integrated Wash-Aid Treatment Emergency Reuse System (IWATERS) was developed. IWATERS consists of three operations: washing contaminated surfaces with an ionic wash solution, collecting, and treating the contaminated wash solution on-site to remove contaminants, and reusing the treated solution throughout operations to preserve the clean water resource. This study develops a framework to simulate the logistics of IWATERS deployment, thereby gaining an understanding of the timeline for decontamination operations. For this purpose, the Analysis of Mobility Platform and GoldSim were leveraged for a hypothetical contamination scenario covering 65,200 m2 of an urban center. The framework reveals that remediation progress is limited by several resources, notably the availability of vermiculite, a reactive clay that is required to treat the contaminated wash solution. This study also presents how the simulation approach can be used to characterize alternatives to reduce the influence of limited resources on operational progress. Overall, this work lays the foundation for evaluating different decontamination methods through detailed logistics simulation, i.e., by refining simulation assumptions and expanding the range of scenarios the simulation can depict. •First of its kind to study decontamination logistics.•Framework simulates water-based decontamination of cesium-137 in an urban center.•Contaminated water is recycled through sand-clay beds.•Remediation is limited by a few resources, notably the availability of the clay.•Decontamination takes 25–45 days for a four-block area for the scenarios presented.