The Design of an Object-Oriented Radiological Waste Database

This report describes the design of an object-oriented database system that was developed by scientists at the Mississippi State University Diagnostic and Instrumentation Laboratory in collaboration with scientists at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. The database has been designed to store data to be used by an expert system that analyzes and characterizes containerized radiological waste. This expert system is to be a component of a larger system called Waste Assay Measurement Integration System (WAMIS); WAMIS is intended to aid staff at the Stored Waste Examination Pilot Plant (SWEPP) in the determination of proper disposition of waste containers. The database contains information about the contents of various waste containers (according to the labels on the containers, which is information that is not completely reliable), different kinds of materials that may be in the containers (such as graphites and combustibles), and the signals acquired by nondestructive waste measurement instruments.