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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.
D. B. Hayden, D. N. Ruzic
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 31 | Number 2 | March 1997 | Pages 128-134
Technical Paper | Divertor System | doi.org/10.13182/FST97-A30815
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Monte Carlo code DEGAS was used to investigate the neutral atom and molecular interactions for a high-pressure (∼1-Torr) gaseous divertor in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). Energy is removed from the plasma by radiation while the plasma pressure is balanced predominantly by a high neutral pressure at the end of the divertor. Plasma parameters were taken from the two-dimensional fluid code PLANET. Neutral sources from both ions recycling off the walls and recombination were included. The neutral density peak calculated with DEGAS of 3.43 ± 0.01 × 1022 m−3 occurred 4.5 cm from the divertor channel end. The ion and neutral atom energy fluxes were calculated to determine the heat load onto the divertor walls. A code was written to calculate the radiation distribution onto the side walls, not including any radiative absorption or reemission. The total energy flux peak (including ions, neutrals, and radiation) was 4.28 ± 0.30 MW/m2. This falls below the design criteria of 5 MW/m2. These results may help determine the wall material, heat removal, and the vacuum pumping requirements for the ITER divertor design and show the importance of a full treatment of neutral atoms and molecules in these regimes.