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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
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. W. Haan, J. Atherton, D. S. Clark, B. A. Hammel, D. A. Callahan, C. J. Cerjan, E. L. Dewald, S. Dixit, M. J. Edwards, S. Glenzer, S. P. Hatchett, D. Hicks, O. S. Jones, O. L. Landen, J. D. Lindl, M. M. Marinak, B. J. Macgowan, A. J. Mackinnon, N. B. Meezan, J. L. Milovich, D. H. Munro, H. F. Robey, J. D. Salmonson, B. K. Spears, L. J. Suter, R. P. Town, S. V. Weber, J. L. Kline, D. C. Wilson
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 63 | Number 2 | March-April 2013 | Pages 67-75
Technical Paper | Selected papers from 20th Target Fabrication Meeting, May 20-24, 2012, Santa Fe, NM, Guest Editor: Robert C. Cook | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-TFM20-31
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The National Ignition Campaign (NIC) on the National Ignition Facility plans to use an indirectly driven spherical implosion to assemble and ignite a mass of D-T fuel. The NIC is currently in the process of conducting a variety of experiments using surrogate targets, meant to define various aspects of the future ignition experiment. Four platforms have been developed: Re-emit targets measure the symmetry of the early part of the pulse, keyhole targets measure the strength and time of shocks, symcap targets measure integrated performance and implosion symmetry, and ConA targets measure implosion velocity and ablator performance. Also, cryogenic layered capsules similar to the ignition design, containing a layer of either D-T or hydrodynamically equivalent tritium-rich fuel, are being fielded. These integrate the laser and target adjustments made during the tuning experiments and test the integrated performance with data on RhoR, temperature, yield, and other diagnostics. In an activity ongoing with these experiments, the point design for ignition is updated and modified as appropriate. This paper summarizes the target designs that are being used for the campaign, the results of the experimental campaign to date, and how the campaign has affected requirements for the eventual ignition experiment.