Protection of Operators and Environment - the Safety Concept of the Karlsruhe Vitrification Plant VEK
The Karlsruhe Vitrification Plant (VEK) plant is a milestone in decommissioning and complete dismantling of the former Karlsruhe Reprocessing Plant WAK, which is in an advanced stage of disassembly. The VEK is scheduled to vitrify approx. 70 m3 of the highly radioactive liquid waste (HLW) resulting from reprocessing. Site preparation, civil work and component manufacturing began in 1999. The building will be finalized by mid of 2002, hot vitrification operation is currently scheduled for 2004/2005. Provisions against damages arising from construction and operation of the VEK had to be made in accordance with the state of the art as laid down in the German Atomic Law and the Radiation Protection Regulations. For this purpose, the appropriate analysis of accidents and their external and internal impacts were investigated. During the detailed design phase, a failure effects analysis was carried out, in which single events were studied with respect to the objectives of protection and ensuring activity containment, limiting radioactive discharges to the environment and protecting of the staff. Parallel to the planning phase of the VEK plant a cold prototype test facility (PVA) covering the main process steps was constructed and operated at the Institut fuer Nukleare Entsorgung (INE) of FZK. This pilot operation served to demonstrate the process technique and its operation with a simulated waste solution, and to test the main items of equipment, but was conducted also to use the experimental data and experience to back the safety concept of the radioactive VEK plant. This paper describes the basis of the safety concept of the VEK plant and results of the failure effect analysis. The experimental simulation of the failure scenarios, their effect on the process behavior, and the controllability of these events as well as the effect of the results on the safety concept of VEK are discussed. Additionally, an overview of the actual status of civil work and manufacturing of the technical equipment is given.
- Research Organization:
- Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH Hermann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 1 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen (DE)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- none (US)
- OSTI ID:
- 828353
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Waste Management 2002 Symposium, Tucson, AZ (US), 02/24/2002--02/28/2002; Other Information: PBD: 26 Feb 2002
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE WASTES, AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
ACCIDENTS
CONSTRUCTION
CONTAINMENT
DECOMMISSIONING
DESIGN
LIQUID WASTES
MANUFACTURING
PLANNING
RADIATION PROTECTION
REGULATIONS
REPROCESSING
SAFETY
SIMULATION
SITE PREPARATION
VITRIFICATION
WAK
WASTE MANAGEMENT