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Fusion Science and Technology
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Glass strategy: Hanford’s enhanced waste glass program
The mission of the Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection (ORP) is to complete the safe cleanup of waste resulting from decades of nuclear weapons development. One of the most technologically challenging responsibilities is the safe disposition of approximately 56 million gallons of radioactive waste historically stored in 177 tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
ORP has a clear incentive to reduce the overall mission duration and cost. One pathway is to develop and deploy innovative technical solutions that can advance baseline flow sheets toward higher efficiency operations while reducing identified risks without compromising safety. Vitrification is the baseline process that will convert both high-level and low-level radioactive waste at Hanford into a stable glass waste form for long-term storage and disposal.
Although vitrification is a mature technology, there are key areas where technology can further reduce operational risks, advance baseline processes to maximize waste throughput, and provide the underpinning to enhance operational flexibility; all steps in reducing mission duration and cost.
S. Masuzaki, M. Kobayashi, M. Tokitani, N. Ashikawa, T. Hino, Y. Yamauchi, Y. Nobuta, N. Yoshida, M. Miyamoto, R. Sakamoto, J. Miyazawa, T. Morisaki, N. Ohyabu, H. Yamada, A. Komori, LHD Experiment Group
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 58 | Number 1 | July-August 2010 | Pages 321-330
Chapter 7. Plasmas-Wall Interactions | Special Issue on Large Helical Device (LHD) | doi.org/10.13182/FST10-A10818
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A global particle balance study has been investigated in the Large Helical Device (LHD) in which the first wall and the divertor tiles are made of stainless steel (SUS-316L) and carbon, respectively. The carbon area is less than 10% of the stainless steel area. The analyzed discharges have been conducted under an intrinsic helical divertor (HD) or a local island divertor (LID). The HD is an open divertor at this stage, and the LID is a closed divertor equipped with a baffle structure and a pump system. In the HD configuration, fuel retention up to 75% of injected hydrogen was observed, and the retained hydrogen affected the plasma density control. On the other hand, almost all fueled hydrogen was evacuated by the pumps in the LID configuration. After each experimental campaign, detailed analyses of the in-vessel material probes (SUS-316L stainless steel) and a divertor tile exposed to various plasma discharges during each experimental campaign were conducted. The areal density of the retained hydrogen both in the material probes and the divertor tile was in the range 1021 to 1022 H/m2 , and it corresponded to the averaged areal density that was observed after an experimental day with high-density discharges.
