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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.
B. Curwen, L. H. Franklin
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 4 | Number 2 | September 1983 | Pages 1373-1377
Magnet Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST83-A23048
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Ohmically Heated Toroidal Experiment (OHTE) is a toroidal pinch magnetic confinement plasma experiment which has been operating at GA Technologies (GA) since February 1981. In its original form, plasma current was induced by an air core induction or ohmic heating coil driven by a capacitor bank. Preliminary study revealed that greater plasma currents and pulse lengths could be achieved more economically by converting to an iron core rather than by installing additional capacitors. Therefore an iron core with a 3 volt-second capability and a stepped configuration was designed, fabricated and incorporated into the OHTE experimental device as part of a planned upgrade. To facilitate handling and installation, the iron core was fabricated in 28 segments consisting of 14 lower and 14 identical upper segments. Space limitations in the center of the machine created by existing geometry limited the flux path to approximately 1.28 m diameter or 1.296 m2. Using a stacking factor of 90% and allowing 3 mm between segments results in a true iron cross section of 1.12 m2. Each segment was fabricated by continuously winding in a “clockspring fashion” around a hardwood former Armco electrically oriented steel, 0.35 mm thick and 88 mm wide. Interspaced between laminations is insulating paper 0.02 mm thick and 88 mm wide bonded to the steel using a structural epoxy adhesive continuously applied during winding. After winding and curing, support saddles consisting of hardwood and aluminum were bonded to the segments. The segments were then cut into two identical halves on a large vertical milling machine. To eliminate electrical shorts, all machined surfaces were etched with a dilute nitric acid solution, then painted with a moisture repelling high dielectric strength epoxy spray paint to eliminate lamination to lamination creepage and surface corrosion.