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DNFSB spots possible bottleneck in Hanford’s waste vitrification
Workers change out spent 27,000-pound TSCR filter columns and place them on a nearby storage pad during a planned outage in 2023. (Photo: DOE)
While the Department of Energy recently celebrated the beginning of hot commissioning of the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP), which has begun immobilizing the site’s radioactive tank waste in glass through vitrification, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has reported a possible bottleneck in waste processing. According to the DNFSB, unless current systems run efficiently, the issue could result in the interruption of operations at the WTP’s Low-Activity Waste Facility, where waste vitrification takes place.
During operations, the LAW Facility will process an average of 5,300 gallons of tank waste per day, according to Bechtel, the contractor leading design, construction, and commissioning of the WTP. That waste is piped to the facility after being treated by Hanford’s Tanks Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) system, which filters undissolved solid material and removes cesium from liquid waste.
According to a November 7 activity report by the DNFSB, the TSCR system may not be able to produce waste feed fast enough to keep up with the LAW Facility’s vitrification rate.
Mark L. Williams
Nuclear Technology | Volume 174 | Number 2 | May 2011 | Pages 149-168
Technical Paper | Special Issue on the SCALE Nuclear Analysis Code System / Reactor Physics | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-104
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
SCALE 6 includes several problem-independent multigroup (MG) libraries that were processed from the evaluated nuclear data file ENDF/B using a generic flux spectrum. The library data must be self-shielded and corrected for problem-specific spectral effects for use in MG neutron transport calculations. SCALE 6 computes problem-dependent MG cross sections through a combination of the conventional Bondarenko shielding-factor method and a deterministic continuous-energy (CE) calculation of the fine-structure spectra in the resolved resonance and thermal energy ranges. The CE calculation can be performed using an infinite medium approximation, a simplified two-region method for lattices, or a one-dimensional discrete ordinates transport calculation with pointwise (PW) cross-section data. This paper describes the SCALE-resonance self-shielding methodologies, including the deterministic calculation of the CE flux spectra using PW nuclear data and the method for using CE spectra to produce problem-specific MG cross sections for various configurations (including doubly heterogeneous lattices). It also presents results of verification and validation studies.
