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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.
Kazuyuki Takase, Tomoaki Kunugi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 34 | Number 3 | November 1998 | Pages 645-650
Safety and Environment (Poster Session) | doi.org/10.13182/FST98-A11963687
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The dust mobilization in the vacuum vessel under the Loss-of-Vacuum-Accident (LOVA) event was measured quantitatively using the preliminary LOVA apparatus. The particle size distributions in the mobilized dust were characterized and analyzed using a high performance optical-microscope and image analysis software. It was found that around 10% of the initial dust weight was transported upward inside the VV when the breach located at the roof of the VV and an incoming flow from the outside through the breach directly hit the dust. On the other hand, the transported dust weight was less than 1% of the initial dust weight when the breach position was at the side wall of the VV and an incoming flow from the outside indirectly hit the dust. The relationship between the dust mobilization and breach position was clarified from the present experimental results.