High Level Waste Remote Handling Equipment in the Melter Cave Support Handling System at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant

Conference · Tue Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2008

OSTI ID:21319760

Bardal, M A ^[1]; Darwen, N J ^[2]

---

1. PaR Systems, Inc., Shoreview, MN (United States)
2. Bechtel National, Inc., Richland, WA (United States)

Cold war plutonium production led to extensive amounts of radioactive waste stored in tanks at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Hanford site. Bechtel National, Inc. is building the largest nuclear Waste Treatment Plant in the world located at the Department of Energy's Hanford site to immobilize the millions of gallons of radioactive waste. The site comprises five main facilities; Pretreatment, High Level Waste vitrification, Low Active Waste vitrification, an Analytical Lab and the Balance of Facilities. The pretreatment facilities will separate the high and low level waste. The high level waste will then proceed to the HLW facility for vitrification. Vitrification is a process of utilizing a melter to mix molten glass with radioactive waste to form a stable product for storage. The melter cave is designated as the High Level Waste Melter Cave Support Handling System (HSH). There are several key processes that occur in the HSH cell that are necessary for vitrification and include: feed preparation, mixing, pouring, cooling and all maintenance and repair of the process equipment. Due to the cell's high level radiation, remote handling equipment provided by PaR Systems, Inc. is required to install and remove all equipment in the HSH cell. The remote handling crane is composed of a bridge and trolley. The trolley supports a telescoping tube set that rigidly deploys a TR 4350 manipulator arm with seven degrees of freedom. A rotating, extending, and retracting slewing hoist is mounted to the bottom of the trolley and is centered about the telescoping tube set. Both the manipulator and slewer are unique to this cell. The slewer can reach into corners and the manipulator's cross pivoting wrist provides better operational dexterity and camera viewing angles at the end of the arm. Since the crane functions will be operated remotely, the entire cell and crane have been modeled with 3-D software. Model simulations have been used to confirm operational and maintenance functional and timing studies throughout the design process. Since no humans can go in or out of the cell, there are several recovery options that have been designed into the system including jack-down wheels for the bridge and trolley, recovery drums for the manipulator hoist, and a wire rope cable cutter for the slewer jib hoist. If the entire crane fails in cell, the large diameter cable reel that provides power, signal, and control to the crane can be used to retrieve the crane from the cell into the crane maintenance area. (authors)

• Research Organization: WM Symposia, 1628 E. Southern Avenue, Suite 9 - 332, Tempe, AZ 85282 (United States)
• OSTI ID: 21319760
• Report Number(s): INIS-US-10-WM-08208; TRN: US10V0459061951
• Resource Relation: Conference: 2008 Waste Management Symposium - WM2008/WM'08: HLW, TRU, LLW/ILW, Mixed, Hazardous Wastes and Environmental Management - Phoenix Rising: Moving Forward in Waste Management, Phoenix, AZ (United States), 24-28 Feb 2008; Other Information: Country of input: France; 3 refs
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE WASTES, AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
COMPUTER CODES
CRANES
HANFORD RESERVATION
HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
LOW-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
MANIPULATORS
PLUTONIUM
RADIOACTIVE WASTE FACILITIES
RADIOACTIVE WASTE PROCESSING
REMOTE HANDLING
SIMULATION
TANKS
VITRIFICATION