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DNFSB spots possible bottleneck in Hanford’s waste vitrification
Workers change out spent 27,000-pound TSCR filter columns and place them on a nearby storage pad during a planned outage in 2023. (Photo: DOE)
While the Department of Energy recently celebrated the beginning of hot commissioning of the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP), which has begun immobilizing the site’s radioactive tank waste in glass through vitrification, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has reported a possible bottleneck in waste processing. According to the DNFSB, unless current systems run efficiently, the issue could result in the interruption of operations at the WTP’s Low-Activity Waste Facility, where waste vitrification takes place.
During operations, the LAW Facility will process an average of 5,300 gallons of tank waste per day, according to Bechtel, the contractor leading design, construction, and commissioning of the WTP. That waste is piped to the facility after being treated by Hanford’s Tanks Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) system, which filters undissolved solid material and removes cesium from liquid waste.
According to a November 7 activity report by the DNFSB, the TSCR system may not be able to produce waste feed fast enough to keep up with the LAW Facility’s vitrification rate.
Michael Andersen, Nasr M. Ghoniem
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 52 | Number 3 | October 2007 | Pages 579-583
Technical Paper | The Technology of Fusion Energy - High Heat Flux Components | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1551
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Tungsten is a candidate material for a variety of applications in Magnetic and Inertial Fusion Energy systems. Experimental data show that the surface of tungsten exposed to laser, ion, and X-ray irradiation undergoes substantial roughening. Control of surface conditions is essential to the design of these systems, since it can lead to crack formation, adverse effects on heat absorption because of emissivity changes, and eventual failure.We first review recent experimental data on the effects of laser, ion and X-ray energetic pulses on the evolution of a surface to identify the variety of patterns and length scales and their dependence on the type and magnitude of irradiation pulses. Then we present a model for the evolution of surface roughness as a result of the balance between destabilizing elastic strain energy caused by thermomechanical strains and near surface accumulation of defects on the one hand, and stabilizing surface and near surface atomic diffusion on the other. Results of the model determine the conditions for surface roughness evolution and the effects of radiation fluence and pulse intensity on surface morphology.
