Nuclear Deactivation and Downgrade of Enriched Uranium Facilities at the Y-12 National Security Complex

Conference · Wed Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 2021

OSTI ID:1820981

Malone, Michael

Buildings 9206 and 9212 at the Y-12 National Security Complex are both Hazard Category 2 nuclear facilities from the Manhattan Project era that supported various missions over the decades, including the processing of enriched uranium. The production mission for Building 9206 ended in the 1990s, while Building 9212 is still an active production facility. The disposition process for contaminated excess facilities is generally described in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Guide DOE O 430.1A, Life Cycle Asset Management, which provides guidance on facility surveillance and maintenance, deactivation, decommissioning, and transition in supplemental guides DOE G 430.1-2 through 430.1-5. Historically, production facilities similar to Buildings 9206 and 9212 have not always been cleaned out and deactivated prior to being excessed, which significantly complicates the decommissioning phase. Many legacy facilities were shut down before the formal DOE guidance was established. This paper presents the practical application and implementation of the DOE guidance for the nuclear deactivation of Buildings 9206 and 9212, and summarizes the lessons learned for application across the DOE enterprise.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant (Y-12), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: NA0001942
• OSTI ID: 1820981
• Report Number(s): IROS37026
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES