Remote integrity assessment of a radioactive hazardous waste tank system

Conference · Tue Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1996

OSTI ID:476538

McCoy, M W ^[1]; Knight, T ^[2]

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1. Pacific Northwest National Lab., Richland, WA (United States)
2. Inuktun Services, Ltd., British Columbia (Canada)

In 1987 the State of Washington received authorization under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act to regulate radioactive waste tanks as part of the state hazardous waste management program. This change in regulation required an integrity assessment of all radioactive hazardous waste tanks. Some of these tanks stored highly radioactive waste and were located in vaults that precluded standard integrity assessment techniques. Such assessments commonly require visual inspection and nondestructive examination of the tank system, including ancillary equipment and secondary containment structures. Four commercially available robots were used to transport and position video camera systems within the vault containing a radioactive hazardous tank system. Spotter robots and a telepresence video camera system were used to aid in precise robot navigation. Before the inspection, existing information on the tank system was assembled and used to create a computer simulation and full-scale mockup of the vault and tank system. The reported assessment was carried out on rectangular slab tanks, gravity fed, located in a basement vault below hot cells in the 325 Building at Hanford.

• DOE Contract Number: AC06-76RL01830
• OSTI ID: 476538
• Report Number(s): CONF-960804--Vol.3
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

05 NUCLEAR FUELS
EVALUATION
HANFORD RESERVATION
ON-SITE INSPECTION
RADIOACTIVE WASTE STORAGE
REMOTE VIEWING EQUIPMENT
ROBOTS
TANKS