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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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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.
T. Q. Hua, S. J. Lee, J. Liao, A. Moisseytsev, P. Ferroni, A. Karahan, C. Y. Paik, A. M. Tentner, T. Sofu
Nuclear Technology | Volume 206 | Number 2 | February 2020 | Pages 206-217
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2019.1598715
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Fauske & Associates, LLC (FAI), Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), and Westinghouse Electric Company are collaborating within the program “Development of an Integrated Mechanistic Source Term Assessment Capability for Lead- and Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactors.” This program, partially funded by the U.S. Department of Energy through the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear initiative, aims at developing a computational framework for predicting radionuclide release from a broad spectrum of accidents that can be postulated to occur at liquid metal cooled reactor (LMR) facilities. Specifically, the program couples the transient and severe accident analysis capability of the SAS4A/SASSYS-1 code developed by ANL with the radionuclide transport analysis capability of the Facility Flow, Aerosol, Thermal, and Explosion (FATE) code developed by FAI. The testing of both the individual codes and of the coupled system is performed on a generic lead cooled fast reactor (LFR) design that is intended to capture the key differences between the LFR and the sodium fast reactor (SFR), around which the SAS4A/SASSYS-1 code has historically been developed and from which the coupled code inherits some features requiring modification before application to LFR systems. By means of this approach, a computational framework applicable to both LFR and SFR systems will be obtained that will assist LMR developers in performing a realistic, scenario-dependent mechanistic source term (MST) assessment expected not only to strengthen their safety case but also to support easier siting and claims on reduced emergency planning zone requirements. This paper discusses the work being performed to adapt the SAS4A/SASSYS-1 and FATE codes to LFR technology; the code coupling method implemented; and some of the results of the LFR test case, with the latter aimed at demonstrating the progress made toward the development of the MST analysis capability that is ultimately targeted.