A summary description of the flammable gas tank safety program

Technical Report · Sat Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 1994

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/10191651· OSTI ID:10191651

Johnson, G D; Sherwood, D J

Radioactive liquid waste may produce hydrogen as result of the interaction of gamma radiation and water. If the waste contains organic chelating agents, additional hydrogen as well as nitrous oxide and ammonia may be produced by thermal and radiolytic decomposition of these organics. Several high-level radioactive liquid waste storage tanks, located underground at the Hanford Site in Washington State, are on a Flammable Gas Watch List. Some contain waste that produces and retains gases until large quantities of gas are released rapidly to the tank vapor space. Tanks nearly-filled to capacity have relatively little vapor space; therefore if the waste suddenly releases a large amount of hydrogen and nitrous oxide, a flammable gas mixture could result. The most notable example of a Hanford waste tank with a flammable gas problem is tank 241-SY-101. Upon occasion waste stored in this tank has released enough flammable gas to burn if an ignition source had been present inside of the tank. Several, other Hanford waste tanks exhibit similar behavior although to a lesser magnitude. Because this behavior was hot adequately-addressed in safety analysis reports for the Hanford Tank Farms, an unreviewed safety question was declared, and in 1990 the Flammable Gas Tank Safety Program was established to address this problem. The purposes of the program are a follows: (1) Provide safety documents to fill gaps in the safety analysis reports, and (2) Resolve the safety issue by acquiring knowledge about gas retention and release from radioactive liquid waste and developing mitigation technology. This document provides the general logic and work activities required to resolve the unreviewed safety question and the safety issue of flammable gas mixtures in radioactive liquid waste storage tanks.

• Research Organization: Westinghouse Hanford Co., Richland, WA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC06-87RL10930
• OSTI ID: 10191651
• Report Number(s): WHC-SD-WM-SD--019; ON: DE95002077; BR: 35AF11201/35AF11202
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

052002
054000
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
CHEMICAL COMPOSITION
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
FLAMMABILITY
HEALTH AND SAFETY
HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
HYDROGEN
IGNITION
LIQUID WASTES
MIXTURES
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
TANKS
UNDERGROUND STORAGE
WASTE DISPOSAL AND STORAGE