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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.
Emily M. Flora, Michael L. Zerkle
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 178 | Number 4 | December 2014 | Pages 539-549
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE14-31
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Epithermal Test Assembly (ETA) experiments were performed to test the adequacy of 233U, 235U, and 232Th cross sections in epithermal spectra in support of the Light Water Breeder Reactor (LWBR) Program. The ETA design contained a central heavy water–moderated test region surrounded by a light water–moderated annular driver region. Two series of experiments were performed: ETA-I with 235UO2-ThO2 fuel rods in the test region and ETA-II with 233UO2-ThO2 fuel rods in the test region. The dominant uncertainties in the critical configurations include the test-rod pitch pitch for ETA-I; the test-region fuel-rod fuel density and 233U to (233U + Th) weight ratio for ETA-II; and the driver-region fuel-rod outer diameter, uranium enrichment, and pitch for both ETA experiments. Benchmark model results using MCNP5 are provided for ENDF/B-V, ENDF/B-VI, ENDF/B-VII.0, and ENDF/B-VII.1 cross sections with only the ENDF/B-VII.0 results falling within three standard deviations of the benchmark model keff. The ETA-I and ETA-II benchmark evaluations have been included in the International Handbook of Evaluated Criticality Safety Benchmark Experiments and are replicated in the International Handbook of Evaluated Reactor Physics Benchmark Experiments.