K-25 D and D Challenges - 12170

Conference · Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2012

OSTI ID:22293470

Eidam, Greg ^[1]

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1. Bechtel National, Inc. (United States)

Decontamination and decommissioning (D and D) of the K-25 former gaseous diffusion plant provides lessons learned applicable to other D and D projects in the DOE Complex. The 175,000- square-meter, 1.6-kilometer-long building is contaminated with highly enriched uranium (HEU), Tc-99, trace quantities of other fission products, asbestos, PCBs, and other hazardous wastes. Safety challenges include deteriorated electrical systems, significant structural degradation, and criticality and exposure risks. The project completely revised the D and D approach after a worker fell through an operating floor and was seriously injured. For protection from deteriorated building conditions, the project reduced the number of workers in the facility, limited their hours in the building, and installed nets and barriers to protect them from falls through weakened floors and from falling material. The new plan involved removing high-risk components, removing motors and compressors, and demolishing the building from the outside with heavy equipment with most of the piping and components inside the building during demolition. The team provided temporary electrical power; reconfigured the criticality alarm system; upgraded security; performed sampling and analysis to locate and characterize HEU deposits and Tc-99; and, to establish 'criticality incredible' conditions, conducted a nondestructive assay program and injected foam into equipment and piping as a contamination fixative. (authors)

• Research Organization: WM Symposia, 1628 E. Southern Avenue, Suite 9-332, Tempe, AZ 85282 (United States)
• OSTI ID: 22293470
• Report Number(s): INIS-US-14-WM-12170; TRN: US14V1124114994
• Resource Relation: Conference: WM2012: Waste Management 2012 conference on improving the future in waste management, Phoenix, AZ (United States), 26 Feb - 1 Mar 2012; Other Information: Country of input: France
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE WASTES, AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
42 ENGINEERING
ASBESTOS
CONTAMINATION
CRITICALITY
DECOMMISSIONING
DECONTAMINATION
DEPOSITS
FISSION PRODUCTS
GASEOUS DIFFUSION PLANTS
HAZARDS
HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM
SAFETY
SECURITY
TECHNETIUM 99
WASTES