Design and construction of a pipeline for transfer of radioactive sodium at Argonne National Laboratory-West.
Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II), an experimental sodium cooled fast breeder reactor located at Argonne National Laboratory-West (ANL-W), was shut down in 1994, and has since been defueled in preparation for final plant closure. Approximately 100,000 gallons of liquid sodium is contained in the primary and secondary cooling systems of the EBR-II plant. The liquid sodium must be drained from the reactor systems during closure of the plant to place the reactor plant in an industrially and radiologically safe condition for long term storage or dismantlement. Because the liquid sodium is a listed waste under the Resource Conservation Recovery Act (RCRA), it is not suitable for disposal. It therefore must be transferred to the Sodium Process Facility (SPF), which is located approximately nine hundred feet from the reactor complex, where it will be processed into a non-reactive form, suitable for land disposal in Idaho. To facilitate this transfer, a heated pipeline for carrying liquid sodium metal from EBR-II to the SPF was designed and installed. The SPF was originally designed and built to process primary sodium from the Fermi-1 reactor. The sodium is stored at ANL-W in 55 gallon drums. Design of the SPF did not originally accommodate processing of EBR-II sodium. Therefore, no method of introducing the EBR-II sodium into the process existed. As part of modifying the SPF for processing EBR-II sodium, it was necessary to design a method for transferring sodium from the EBR-H complex to the SPF and introducing it into the existing system. This requirement has been fulfilled by design and installation of a pipeline between the two facilities.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Lab., IL (US)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- US Department of Energy (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-31109-ENG-38
- OSTI ID:
- 10547
- Report Number(s):
- ANL/ED/CP-95219; TRN: US0103597
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: ICONE-6 International Conference on Nuclear Engineering, San Diego, CA (US), 05/10/1998--05/15/1998; Other Information: PBD: 25 Feb 1998
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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