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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.
A. Langenberg, J. Svensson, H. Thomsen, O. Marchuk, N. A. Pablant, R. Burhenn, R. C. Wolf
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 69 | Number 2 | April 2016 | Pages 560-567
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST15-181
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Two X-ray imaging crystal spectrometer systems are currently being prepared for commissioning at the stellarator Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X). Both are expected to be ready for the first plasma operation in 2015. The spectrometers will provide line-integrated measurements of basic plasma parameters like ion and electron temperatures (Te,Ti), plasma rotation (vrot), and argon impurity densities. A forward model based on the designed installation geometries of both spectrometers has been performed using the Minerva Bayesian analysis framework. This model allows us to create synthesized data given radial profiles of plasma parameters for a wide range of different scenarios. To simulate line-integrated spectra as measured by the (virtual) detector, the geometry and Gaussian detection noise are assumed. The line-integrated plasma parameters are inferred within the framework from noisy spectral data using the maximum posterior method. The capabilities and limitations of the model and method are discussed through examples of several synthesized data sets of different plasma parameter profiles.
