Remote-Reading Safety and Safeguards Surveillance System for 3013 Containers

Conference · Tue Feb 26 00:00:00 EST 2002

OSTI ID:834048

Lechelt, W M; Skorpik, J R; Silvers, K L; Szempruch, R W; Douglas, D G; Fein, K O

At Hanford's Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP), plutonium oxide is being loaded into stainless steel containers for long-term storage on the Hanford Site. These containers consist of two weld-sealed stainless steel cylinders nested one within the other. A third container holds the plutonium within the inner cylinder. This design meets the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) storage standard, DOE-STD- 3013-2000, which anticipates a 50-year storage lifetime. The 3013 standard also requires a container surveillance program to continuously monitor pressure and to assure safeguards are adequate. However, the configuration of the container system makes using conventional measurement and monitoring methods difficult. To better meet the 3013 monitoring requirements, a team from Fluor Hanford (who manages the PFP), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), and Vista Engineering Technologies, LLC, developed a safer, cost-efficient, remote PFP 3013 container surveillance system. This new surveillance system is a combination of two successfully deployed technologies: (1) a magnetically coupled pressure gauge developed by Vista Engineering and (2) a radio frequency (RF) tagging device developed by PNNL. This system provides continuous, 100% monitoring of critical parameters with the containers in place, as well as inventory controls. The 3013 container surveillance system consists of three main elements: (1) an internal magnetic pressure sensor package, (2) an instrument pod (external electronics package), and (3) a data acquisition storage and display computer. The surveillance system described in this paper has many benefits for PFP and DOE in terms of cost savings and reduced personnel exposure. In addition, continuous safety monitoring (i.e., internal container pressure and temperature) of every container is responsible nuclear material stewardship and fully meets and exceeds DOE's Integrated Surveillance Program requirements.

• Research Organization: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, P.O. Box 999, Richland, WA (US); Fluor Hanford, Inc., P.O. Box 1000, Richland, WA; Vista Engineering, LLC, 8203 West Quinalt Ave., Suite 200, Kennewick, WA (US)
• Sponsoring Organization: US Department of Energy (US)
• OSTI ID: 834048
• 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

Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE WASTES, AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL PROTECTION
CONFIGURATION
CONTAINERS
DATA ACQUISITION
DESIGN
LIFETIME
MONITORING
MONITORS
PERSONNEL
PHOSPHORS
PLUTONIUM
PLUTONIUM OXIDES
SAFEGUARDS
SAFETY
STAINLESS STEELS
STORAGE
WASTE MANAGEMENT