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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.
Yang-Il Jung, Hyun-Gil Kim, Dong-Won Lee, Yoon-Soo Lim, Seungyon Cho
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 72 | Number 3 | October 2017 | Pages 523-529
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1330610
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Tungsten was joined to ferritic-martensitic steel (FMS) for application in a plasma facing component. Zirconium foil was investigated as an interlayer material for the joining of W to FMS. Repeated hot isostatic pressing (HIP) was conducted for the fabrication of W/FMS joints. The first HIP was performed at 950°C under 100 MPa for 1.5 h (diffusion joining stage), and the second HIP was executed at 750°C under 70 MPa for 2 h (tempering stage). The Zr interlayer formed a sound interface between W and FMS with no observable pores and cracks. The joining strength of W/FMS measured by a shear test was about 54 MPa. Elemental diffusion was observed along the hetero-interfaces of W/Zr and Zr/FMS. At the W/Zr interface, a thin layer of W–Zr inter-phase was observed. At the Zr/FMS interface, no intermetallic compound was formed, however, fine Zr grains featuring body-centered tetragonal lattice structures were formed near the interface.