The Cementitious Barriers Partnership Experimental Programs and Software Advancing DOE’s Waste Disposal/Tank Closure Efforts – 15436
- Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, SC (United States). Savannah River National Lab. (SRNL)
- Vanderbilt Univ./CRESP, Nashville, TN (United States)
- SIMCO Technologies, Inc. (United States)
- US DOE, Washington, DC (United States)
The U.S. Department of Energy Environmental Management (DOE-EM) Office of Tank Waste Management-sponsored Cementitious Barriers Partnership (CBP) is chartered with providing the technical basis for implementing cement-based waste forms and radioactive waste containment structures for long-term disposal. DOE needs in this area include the following to support progress in final treatment and disposal of legacy waste and closure of High-Level Waste (HLW) tanks in the DOE complex: long-term performance predictions, flow sheet development and flow sheet enhancements, and conceptual designs for new disposal facilities. The DOE-EM Cementitious Barriers Partnership is producing software and experimental programs resulting in new methods and data needed for end-users involved with environmental cleanup and waste disposal. Both the modeling tools and the experimental data have already benefited the DOE sites in the areas of performance assessments by increasing confidence backed up with modeling support, leaching methods, and transport properties developed for actual DOE materials. In 2014, the CBP Partnership released the CBP Software Toolbox –“Version 2.0” which provides concrete degradation models for 1) sulfate attack, 2) carbonation, and 3) chloride initiated rebar corrosion, and includes constituent leaching. These models are applicable and can be used by both DOE and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for service life and long-term performance evaluations and predictions of nuclear and radioactive waste containment structures across the DOE complex, including future SRS Saltstone and HLW tank performance assessments and special analyses, Hanford site HLW tank closure projects and other projects in which cementitious barriers are required, the Advanced Simulation Capability for Environmental Management (ASCEM) project which requires source terms from cementitious containment structures as input to their flow simulations, regulatory reviews of DOE performance assessments, and Nuclear Regulatory Commission reviews of commercial nuclear power plant (NPP) structures which are part of the overall US Energy Security program to extend the service life of NPPs. In addition, the CBP experimental programs have had a significant impact on the DOE complex by providing specific data unique to DOE sodium salt wastes at Hanford and SRS which are not readily available in the literature. Two recent experimental programs on cementitious phase characterization and on technetium (Tc) mobility have provided significant conclusions as follows: recent mineralogy characterization discussed in this paper illustrates that sodium salt waste form matrices are somewhat similar to but not the same as those found in blended cement matrices which to date have been used in long-term thermodynamic modeling and contaminant sequestration as a first approximation. Utilizing the CBP generated data in long-term performance predictions provides for a more defensible technical basis in performance evaluations. In addition, recent experimental studies related to technetium mobility indicate that conventional leaching protocols may not be conservative for direct disposal of Tc-containing waste forms in vadose zone environments. These results have the potential to influence the current Hanford supplemental waste treatment flow sheet and disposal conceptual design.
- Research Organization:
- Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, SC (United States). Savannah River National Lab. (SRNL)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC09-08SR22470
- OSTI ID:
- 1177885
- Report Number(s):
- SRNL-STI-2015-00022; TRN: US1600125
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Waste Management 2015 (WM2015), Phoenix, AZ (United States), 15-19 Mar 2015
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Cementitious Barriers Partnerships (FY2015 Mid-Year Status Report)
Cementitious Barriers Partnership - FY2015 End-Year Report
Related Subjects
WASTE FORMS
HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
WASTE DISPOSAL
WASTE PROCESSING
CEMENTS
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS
CONCRETES
TANKS
FLOWSHEETS
SODIUM COMPOUNDS
TECHNETIUM
PERFORMANCE
LEACHING
COMPUTER CODES
SERVICE LIFE
CHLORIDES
CONTAINMENT BUILDINGS
FORECASTING
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
CORROSION
EVALUATION
MATRIX MATERIALS
SALTS
SULFATES
SOURCE TERMS
RADIONUCLIDE MIGRATION
UNDERGROUND
DECOMPOSITION
HANFORD RESERVATION
SAVANNAH RIVER SITE