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Latest News
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.
H. Jin, Y. Wu, J. Qin, F. Liu, F. Long, M. Yu, Q. Han, C. Huang
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 74 | Number 3 | October 2018 | Pages 211-218
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1421365
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Modified stainless steel 316LN is selected as a candidate material for the China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR) central solenoid model coil (CSMC) because of the high strength combined with good ductility at cryogenic temperature. The tensile properties, fatigue crack growth rate, and fracture toughness of the SS316LN tube in solution-annealed and aged (575°C/100 h and 650°C/100 h) conditions were evaluated at 4.2 K. The fatigue crack growth and tensile properties for the solution-annealed conduit were high enough to satisfy the design requirements for CFETR CSMC. However, the fracture toughness of the aged conduit is not satisfied, since there was a significant decline from 280 to 110 MPa·m1/2 after cold working and aging treatments. The chemical compositions and fractures have been analyzed to assess the reason and recommend modifications that could improve fracture toughness and fatigue crack growth properties.
