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Title: Hanford Waste End Effector Phase I Test Report

Abstract

This test plan describes the Phase 1 testing program of the Hanford Waste End Effector (HWEE) at the Washington River Protection Solutions’ Cold Test Facility (CTF) using a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)-designed testing setup. This effort fulfills the informational needs for initial assessment of the HWEE to support Hanford single-shell tank A-105 retrieval. This task will install the HWEE on a PNNL-designed robotic gantry system at CTF, install and calibrate instrumentation to measure reaction forces and process parameters, prepare and characterize simulant materials, and implement the test program. The tests will involve retrieval of water, sludge, and hardpan simulants to determine pumping rate, dilution factors, and screen fouling rate.

Authors:
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1]
  1. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE
OSTI Identifier:
1406801
Report Number(s):
PNNL-26856 Rev 1
830403000; TRN: US1800087
DOE Contract Number:
AC05-76RL01830
Resource Type:
Technical Report
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES; WASTES; TANKS; WATER; SLUDGES; Hanford; Tank; Waste retrieval; waste characterization

Citation Formats

Berglin, Eric J., Hatchell, Brian K., Mount, Jason C., Neill, Kevin J., Wells, Beric E., and Burns, Carolyn A.M. Hanford Waste End Effector Phase I Test Report. United States: N. p., 2017. Web. doi:10.2172/1406801.
Berglin, Eric J., Hatchell, Brian K., Mount, Jason C., Neill, Kevin J., Wells, Beric E., & Burns, Carolyn A.M. Hanford Waste End Effector Phase I Test Report. United States. doi:10.2172/1406801.
Berglin, Eric J., Hatchell, Brian K., Mount, Jason C., Neill, Kevin J., Wells, Beric E., and Burns, Carolyn A.M. Fri . "Hanford Waste End Effector Phase I Test Report". United States. doi:10.2172/1406801. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1406801.
@article{osti_1406801,
title = {Hanford Waste End Effector Phase I Test Report},
author = {Berglin, Eric J. and Hatchell, Brian K. and Mount, Jason C. and Neill, Kevin J. and Wells, Beric E. and Burns, Carolyn A.M.},
abstractNote = {This test plan describes the Phase 1 testing program of the Hanford Waste End Effector (HWEE) at the Washington River Protection Solutions’ Cold Test Facility (CTF) using a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)-designed testing setup. This effort fulfills the informational needs for initial assessment of the HWEE to support Hanford single-shell tank A-105 retrieval. This task will install the HWEE on a PNNL-designed robotic gantry system at CTF, install and calibrate instrumentation to measure reaction forces and process parameters, prepare and characterize simulant materials, and implement the test program. The tests will involve retrieval of water, sludge, and hardpan simulants to determine pumping rate, dilution factors, and screen fouling rate.},
doi = {10.2172/1406801},
journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Sep 22 00:00:00 EDT 2017},
month = {Fri Sep 22 00:00:00 EDT 2017}
}

Technical Report:

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  • This strategy plan describes a coupled analytical/experimental approach to develop a multi-functional scarifier end effector coupled with a pneumatic conveyance system to retrieve wastes from underground storage tanks. The scarifier uses ultra-high-pressure water jets to rubblize and entrain waste forms such as salt cake, sludge, and viscous liquid that can be transported pneumatically. The three waste types (hard, brittle, salt cake, viscous liquid, and deformable sludge) present increasingly complex challenges for scarification and pneumatic conveyance. Salt cake is anticipated to be the easiest to retrieve because (1) a theoretical model of hydraulic rock fracture can be applied to estimate jetmore » performance to fracture salt cake, and (2) gas-solids transport correlations can be used to predict pneumatic transport. Deformable sludge is anticipated to be the most difficult to retrieve: no theories, correlations, or data exist to predict this performance. However order-of-magnitude gas-solid correlations indicate particulate wastes of prototypic density can be transported to a height of 20 m within allowable pressure limits provided that the volume fraction of the gaseous phase is kept above 95%. Viscous liquid is anticipated to be of intermediate complexity to retrieve. Phenomena that are expected to affect system performance are ranked. Experiments and analyses necessary to evaluate the effects of these phenomena are proposed. Subsequent strategies for experiment test plans, system deployment, and operation and control will need to be developed.« less
  • One tool being developed for dislodging and fragmenting the hard salt cake waste in the single-shell nuclear waste tanks at the Hanford Reservation near Richland, Washington, is the hydraulic impact end effector (HIEE). This total operates by discharging 11-in. slugs of water at ultrahigh pressures. The HIEE was designed, built, and initially tested in 1992. Work in 1993 included advanced developments of the HIEE to further investigate its fragmentation abilities and to determine more effective operating procedures. These tests showed that more fragmentation can be achieved by increasing the charge pressure of 40 kpsi to 55 kpsi and by themore » use of different operating procedures. The size of the material and the impact energy of the water slug fired from the HIEE are believed to be major factors in material fragmentation. The material`s ability to fracture also appears to depend on the distance a fracture or crack line must travel to a free surface. Thus, larger material is more difficult to fracture than smaller material. Discharge pressures of 40 kpsi resulted in little penetration or fracturing of the material. At 55 kpsi, however, the size and depth of the fractures increased. Nozzle geometry had a significant effect on fragment size and quantity. Fragmentation was about an order of magnitude greater when the HIEE was discharged into drilled holes rather than onto the material surface. Since surface shots tend to create craters, a multi-shot procedure, coupled with an advanced nozzle design, was used to drill (crater) deep holes into large material. With this procedure, a 600-lb block was reduced to smaller pieces without the use of any additional equipment. Through this advanced development program, the HIEE has demonstrated that it can quickly fragment salt cake material into small, easily removable fragments. The HIEE`s material fragmentation ability can be substantially increased through the use of different nozzle geometries and operating procedures.« less
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  • Between 1952 and 1970, over two million cubic feet of transuranic mixed waste was buried in shallow pits and trenches in the Subsurface Disposal Area at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory Radioactive Waste Management Complex. Commingled with this two million cubic feet of waste is up to 10 million cubic feet of fill soil. The pits and trenches were constructed similarly to municipal landfills with both stacked and random dump waste forms such as barrels and boxes. The main contaminants are micron-sized particles of plutonium and americium oxides, chlorides, and hydroxides. Retrieval, treatment, and disposal is one of the optionsmore » being considered for the waste. This report describes the results of a field demonstration conducted to evaluate technologies for excavating, and transporting buried transuranic wastes at the INEL, and other hazardous or radioactive waste sites throughout the US Department of Energy complex. The full-scale demonstration, conduced at RAHCO Internationals facilities in Spokane, Washington, in the summer of 1994, evaluated equipment performance and techniques for digging, dumping, and transporting buried waste. Three technologies were evaluated in the demonstration: an Innovative End Effector for dust free dumping, a Telerobotic Transport Vehicle to convey retrieved waste from the digface, and a Remote Operated Excavator to deploy the Innovative End Effector and perform waste retrieval operations. Data were gathered and analyzed to evaluate retrieval performance parameters such as retrieval rates, transportation rates, human factors, and the equipment`s capability to control contamination spread.« less
  • This appendix describes the sampling and analysis of the next ten single-shell tanks (SST) following the successful of SSTs B-201 and B-202. SST T-203 shall not be core sampled sequentially after B-201 and B-202, as originally planned, because this tank would not have provided information on tank safety issues and it contains an identical waste type as the previous two SSTs. Therefore, sampling and analysis of T-203 at the present time was considered repetitious and not an efficient utilization of the limited available resources. This test plan will outline methodology for characterization of the next ten SSTs, summarize lessons learnedmore » in the laboratory during Phase IA/IB, identify criteria for tank selection, and detail the analysis to be performed during the characterization of each tank. The sampling, analysis, and data collection, detailed by the this test plan, are being performed to support the final SST closure date of 2,018 identified in the Hanford Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order (Tri-Party Agreement).« less