Power distribution for an Am/Cm bushing melter

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

OSTI ID:491488

Gong, C; Hardy, B J

Decades of nuclear material production at the Savannah River Site (SRS) has resulted in the generation of large quantities of the isotopes Am{sup 243} and Cm{sup 244}. Currently, the Am and Cm isotopes are stored as a nitric acid solution in a tank. The Am and Cm isotopes have great commercial value but must be transferred to ORNL for processing. The nitric acid solution contains other isotopes and is intensely radioactive, which makes storage a problem and precludes shipment in the liquid form. In order to stabilize the material for onsite storage and to permit transport the material from SRS to ORNL, it has been proposed that the Am and Cm be separated from other isotopes in the solution and vitrified. Vitrification will be effected by depositing a liquid feed stream containing the isotopes in solution, together with a stream of glass frit, onto the top of a molten glass pool in a melter. The glass is non-conducting and the melter is a Platinum/Rhodium alloy vessel which is heated by passing an electric current through it. Because most of the power is required to evaporate the liquid feed at the top of the glass pool, power demands differ for the upper and lower parts of the melter. In addition, the melter is batch fed so that the local power requirements vary with time. In order to design a unique split power supply, which ensures adequate local power delivery, an analysis of the melter power distribution was performed with the ABAQUS finite element code. ABAQUS was used to calculate the electric potential and current density distributions in the melter for a variety of current and potential boundary conditions. The results of the calculation were compared with test data and will be used to compute power densities for input to a computational fluid dynamics model for the melter.

• Research Organization: Westinghouse Savannah River Co., Aiken, SC (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC09-89SR18035
• OSTI ID: 491488
• Report Number(s): WSRC-MS--96-0590; CONF-970726--16; ON: DE97060147
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

05 NUCLEAR FUELS
AMERICIUM 243
CERAMIC MELTERS
COMPUTER-AIDED DESIGN
CURIUM 244
LIQUID WASTES
POWER SUPPLIES
RADIOACTIVE WASTE PROCESSING
SAVANNAH RIVER PLANT
VITRIFICATION