Rheological characterization of nuclear waste using falling-ball rheometry

Conference · Fri Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 1994

OSTI ID:10164178

Abbott, J R; Unal, C; Stephens, T; Pasamehmetoglu, K O; Graham, A L; Edwards, J N

Knowledge of the rheological properties of saturated solutions containing solid particles is very important in nuclear waste management technology. For example, the nuclear waste in the Hanford Site high-level radioactive waste tanks contains strong electrolyte solutions with a high concentration of solids. Previous attempt using rotational viscometers to determine the rheology has shown unusual thixotropic and shear thinning behaviors with a lack of reproducibility. Using falling-ball rheometry, the rheology of the undisturbed simulant may be determined with much better reproducibility. In this study, a well-mixed simulant which has similar chemical composition to the actual waste will be tested. Falling-ball size and density will be varied to get data in a wide range of shear rates. To determine the rheogram, several methods will be tried to match the observed data. Based on these tests, a rheogram can be determined from the model and its best-fit parameters. The simulant shows shear-thinning behavior and a yield stress. This would suggest a H-B model. But when fitting to one of the simulants which showed a very low yield stress, the predictions assuming no yield and assuming yield resulted in no improvement in the fit when assuming yield.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-36
• OSTI ID: 10164178
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-94-1703; CONF-941102-6; ON: DE94014812
• Resource Relation: Conference: Winter meeting of the American Nuclear Society (ANS),Washington, DC (United States),13-18 Nov 1994; Other Information: PBD: [1994]
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
42 ENGINEERING
HANFORD RESERVATION
RADIOACTIVE WASTE STORAGE
HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
RHEOLOGY
VISCOSITY
FLUID FLOW
THIXOTROPY
BENCH-SCALE EXPERIMENTS
TANKS
052002
420200
WASTE DISPOSAL AND STORAGE
FACILITIES, EQUIPMENT, AND TECHNIQUES