FIU Participation at the Waste Management 2014 Conference

The Applied Research Center (ARC) at Florida International University (FIU) will be attending and making technical presentations at the upcoming Waste Management 2014 Conference (WM14) in Phoenix, Arizona, from March 2 – 6, 2014. Seven (7) professional oral and poster presentations will be given based on the applied research being conducted by ARC on behalf of DOE-EM in major areas of research: 1) High Level Waste, 2) Soil and Groundwater Remediation, 3) Deactivation & Decommissioning, and 4) Information Technology for Environmental Management. The professional presentations will include:

• Experimental Testing of Innovative High Level Waste Pipeline Unplugging Technologies (14601), Amer Awwad, Tomas Pribanic, Dwayne McDaniel. Presenter: Dwayne McDaniel
• Computational Fluid Dynamic Modelling of High Level Waste Plug Formation (14359), Romani Patel, Georgio Tachiev, Dwayne McDaniel. Presenter: Dwayne McDaniel
• Rate of Uranium Release from Calcium Meta-Autunite: Effect of Bicarbonate Solutions on the Dissolution (14218), Ravi Gudavalli, Yelena Katsenovich, Leo Lagos, Dawn Wellman (PNNL). Presenter: Yelena Katsenovich
• The Effect of Ca Ions on the Removal of U(VI) via In Situ Ammonia Gas Injection at the Hanford Site 200 Area (14434), Yelena Katsenovich, Claudia Cardona (DOE Fellow), Leo Lagos. Presenter: Claudia Cardona (DOE Fellow)
• Knowledge Management Information Tool – 2014 (14190), Himanshu Upadhyay, Leo Lagos, Walter Quintero, Peggy Shoffner, John De Gregory (DOE EM-13). Presenter: Himanshu Upadhyay
• Waste Management System with 2013-14 Waste Streams (14192), Himanshu Upadhyay, Leo Lagos, Walter Quintero, Peggy Shoffner, David Roelant. Presenter: Himanshu Upadhyay
• The DOE-FIU Cooperative Agreement – Addressing DOE-EM’s Technical Challenges (14607), Leo Lagos, Peggy Shoffner. Presenter: Leo Lagos

Duriem Calderin (Biomedical Engineering) – Class of 2008 – ALUMNI

In addition, a total of twenty (20) FIU STEM students will participate in WM14. Nineteen (19) DOE Fellows and other FIU students will present technical posters during Session 31 (Student Poster Competition: The Next Generation – Industry Leaders of Tomorrow) based on the hands-on research that they have performed at ARC and during their summer internships at DOE sites, national laboratories, and site contractors. One (1) DOE Fellow will be giving a professional oral presentation as listed above. One DOE Fellow (Gabriela Vasquez) will also participate in a panel session at the conference, Session 44 on “Graduating Students and New Engineers – Wants and Needs.” In addition, a former DOE Fellow (Duriem Calderin – Class of 2008) is returning to WM14 and participating in Session 45 “Young Professional in Nuclear Science & Engineering.” Duriem is working as an engineer at AREVA NP Inc’s Thermal Hydraulic Group in Richland, WA. Duriem will discuss his first step as a young engineer in the nuclear industry and his experience as a DOE Fellow.

The student posters include:

• Innovative High-Level Waste Pipeline Unplugging Technologies for Hanford Site (Asynchronous Pulsing) – Alexandra Fleitas (DOE Fellow)
• Rapid Imaging of Settled Solids in Hanford HLW Staging Tanks – Dayron Chigin (DOE Fellow)
• Computational Simulation and Evolution of High-Level Waste Pipeline Plugs – Deanna M. Moya (DOE Fellow)
• U.S. Low Level and Mixed Low Level Waste Treatment Technology Identification – Gabriela Vazquez (DOE Fellow)
• Analysis of Life Expectancy for Waste Transfer Lines Located at Hanford Site – Jennifer Arniella (DOE Fellow)
• Investigation of Permanent and Removable Coatings for Decontamination of Savannah River Site (SRS) Plutonium Fuel Form Facility – Mariana Evora (DOE Fellow)
• Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulations of Fluid Transients in a Pipeline at Hanford Site- Michael Abbott (DOE Fellow)
• Display of Contaminated Locations at Oak Ridge site using ArcGIS – Michelle Embon (DOE Fellow)
• A Study of Cell Viability on DOE Hanford Soil Isolates: Effect of U (VI) and Bicarbonate – Paola Sepulveda-Medina (DOE Fellow)
• Native Android Application for Deactivation & Decommissioning Technologies -Chandrashekar Gama Deshika Swamy (FIU Graduate Student)
• Performance Evaluation of Mobile Applications with Deactivation & Decommissioning (D&D) Technology Services – Revathy Venkataraman (DOE Fellow)
• Characterization of the Uranium-Bearing Products of Novel Remediation Technologies – Robert Lapierre (DOE Fellow)
• Design and Development of Geographical Information System (GIS) Map for DOE Waste Streams – Sandhya Appunni (FIU Graduate Student)
• GPU Accelerated Lattice-Boltzmann Method for Fluid Flows in Nuclear Waste Tanks at Hanford Site – Sasha Philius (DOE Fellow)
• Development of REST Services for Populating ESRI’s ArcGIS Spatial Modeling Applications – Steve Noel (DOE Fellow)
• Microcosm Study on Mineralogical Changes of Post-Molasses Injection with Savannah River Site (SRS) F-area – Valentina Padilla (DOE Fellow)
• Engineering Scale Pipeline Unplugging Testing Using the Improved Peristaltic Crawler System for Removal of High Level Waste Plugs at Hanford Site Pipelines – Carmela Vallalta (DOE Fellow)
• The Effects of Silica and Humic Acid on U(VI) Removal from Savannah River Site (SRS) F/H Area Groundwater – Joel McGill (DOE Fellow)
• Environmental Remediation Optimization: Cost Savings, Footprint Reduction, and Sustainability Benchmarked on DOE Sites – Natalia Duque (DOE Fellow)

Preview DOE Fellow Presentation Topics

FIU will host a booth in the exhibiter’s hall to provide conference attendees with additional information on the DOE-EM applied research being conducted at ARC and to provide live demonstrations of the D&D Knowledge Management Information Tool, a free web-based knowledge management information tool custom built for the D&D user community (www.dndkm.org). Program and project fact sheets on DOE-EM projects will also be made available to conference attendees.

While at the conference, FIU will also participate in the Energy Facility Contractors Group (EFCOG) Deactivation & Decommissioning and Facility Engineering (DD/FE) Working Group meeting by presenting a workshop on the D&D KM-IT. In addition, a DOE Fellow (Mariana Evora) who has been supporting an EM research task on decontamination agents and materials for SRS will attend the in-meeting demonstration by CBI of DeconGel-Pro, a strippable gel developed for remediation of radioactive and other contaminants.
Additional information can be obtained by contacting Dr. Leonel Lagos (ARC Director of Research) at (305) 348-1810 or lagosl@fiu.edu.

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