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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.
T. Kaitsuka et al. (19P75)
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 51 | Number 2 | February 2007 | Pages 415-417
Technical Paper | Open Magnetic Systems for Plasma Confinement | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1420
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Wave propagation around the ECR layer in the GAMMA 10 plug region is analyzed by calculating the dispersion relation of an electron cyclotron wave in a hot plasma. Then, the spatial distribution of microwave power deposition and the absorption rate along each microwave ray are calculated. The absorption rate is experimentally evaluated by using an array of waveguide antennas. The calculated value well agrees with the experimental one on reasonable assumption that the extraordinary mode shares about 90% of the injected microwave power. This analysis is used to obtain an axisymmetric power deposition distribution. It is shown that the heating wave should be directed somewhat upward than the direction to the on-axis point on the resonance layer. This is because a larger power is deposited in the injection side lower side to the machine axis. For the plug in GAMMA 10, an injection beam with an elliptic cross section is suitable to obtain a circular distribution of power deposition.
