An Approach to Understanding Cohesive Slurry Settling, Mobilization, and Hydrogen Gas Retention in Pulsed Jet Mixed Vessels

Gauglitz, Phillip A.; Wells, Beric E.; Fort, James A.; Meyer, Philip D.

doi:10.2172/957368

Cited by 14 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 97 publications

(104 reference statements)

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“…Methods to estimate other flammable gases are described by Weber (2009). Gauglitz et al (1995Gauglitz et al ( , 1996Gauglitz et al ( , 2009) developed the following Bond Number to address the gas retention by capillary force and waste strength:…”

Section: Gas Generation Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For pump jet mixing, Powell et al (1997) and Gauglitz et al (2009), respectively, derived the following ECR formulas for Hanford Site waste.…”

Section: Examples Of Ecr Calculation Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For the vertical jet representing the PJM, Gauglitz et al (2009) derived the following non-dimensional ECR formula: …”

Section: Examples Of Ecr Calculation Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Hanford Waste Physical and Rheological Properties: Data and Gaps

Wells¹,

Kurath²,

Mahoney³

et al. 2011

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103

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Executive SummaryThe Hanford Site in Washington State manages 177 underground storage tanks containing approximately 250,000 m 3 of waste generated during past defense reprocessing and waste management operations. These tanks contain a mixture of sludge, saltcake and supernatant liquids. The insoluble sludge fraction of the waste consists of metal oxides and hydroxides and contains the bulk of many radionuclides such as the transuranic components and 90 Sr. The saltcake, generated by extensive evaporation of aqueous solutions, consists primarily of dried sodium salts. The supernates consist of concentrated (5-15 M) aqueous solutions of sodium and potassium salts. The 177 storage tanks include 149 single-shell tanks (SSTs) and 28 double-shell tanks (DSTs).Ultimately the wastes need to be retrieved from the tanks for treatment and disposal. The SSTs contain minimal amounts of liquid wastes, and the Tank Operations Contractor is continuing a program of moving solid wastes from SSTs to interim storage in the DSTs. The Hanford DST system provides the staging location for waste feed delivery to the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of River Protection's (ORP) Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP). The WTP is being designed and constructed to pretreat and then vitrify a large portion of the wastes in Hanford's 177 underground waste storage tanks.The retrieval, transport, treatment and disposal operations involve the handling of a wide range of slurries. Solids in the slurry have a wide range of particle size, density and chemical characteristics. Depending on the solids concentration the slurries may exhibit a Newtonian or a non-Newtonian rheology.The extent of knowledge of the physical and rheological properties is a key component to the success of the design and implementation of the waste processing facilities. These properties are used in engineering calculations in facility designs. Knowledge of the waste properties is also necessary for the development and fabrication of simulants that are used in testing at various scales. The expense and hazards associated with obtaining and using actual wastes dictates that simulants be used at many stages in the testing and scale-up of process equipment. The results presented in this report should be useful for estimating process and equipment performance and provide a technical basis for development of simulants for testing.The purpose of this document is to provide an updated summary of the Hanford waste characterization data pertinent to safe storage, retrieval, transport and processing operations for both the tank farms and the WTP and thereby identify gaps in understanding and data. Important waste parameters for these operations are identified by examining examples of relevant mathematical models of selected phenomena including: The data sets in (UDS composition and particle density, UDS primary particle size and shape, UDS particle size distributions [PSDs], and estimated particle size and density distributions [PSDDs]) and Poloski et al. (2007) ...

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Section: Gas Generation Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For pump jet mixing, Powell et al (1997) and Gauglitz et al (2009), respectively, derived the following ECR formulas for Hanford Site waste.…”

Section: Examples Of Ecr Calculation Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Hanford Waste Physical and Rheological Properties: Data and Gaps

Wells¹,

Kurath²,

Mahoney³

et al. 2011

Self Cite

103

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“…The small-scale studies on the mechanisms of gas retention and bubble behavior in tank waste have been the subject of a number of studies (see for example, Gauglitz et al 1994Gauglitz et al , 1995Gauglitz et al , 1996Gauglitz et al , 2001Gauglitz et al , 2009Stewart et al 1996;Rassat et al 1997Rassat et al , 1998Rassat et al , 1999Bredt et al 1995;Bredt and Tingey 1996;and Walker et al 1994). Gauglitz et al (2009) have recently summarized these studies.…”

Section: Previous Small-scale Studies Of Bubble Retentionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Gauglitz et al (2009) have recently summarized these studies. When the waste particles are much smaller than the bubbles, the bubbles displace the waste and are retained by the strength of the waste, which is equivalent to the description given by Winterwerp and Van Kesteren (2004) for this scenario.…”

Section: Previous Small-scale Studies Of Bubble Retentionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strong-Sludge Gas Retention and Release Mechanisms in Clay Simulants

Gauglitz¹,

Buchmiller²,

Probert³

et al. 2012

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Executive SummaryThe Hanford Site has 28 double-shell tanks (DSTs) and 149 single-shell tanks (SSTs) containing radioactive wastes that are complex mixes of radioactive and chemical products. The mission of the Department of Energy's River Protection Project is to retrieve and treat the Hanford tank waste for disposal and close the tank farms. A key aspect of the mission is to retrieve and transfer waste from the SSTs, which are at greater risk for leaking, into DSTs for interim storage until the waste is transferred to and treated in the Hanford Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant. There is, however, limited space in the existing DSTs to accept waste transfers from the SSTs, and approaches to overcoming the limited DST space will benefit the overall mission.The current safety basis for managing the waste in the tank farms provides controls to prevent spontaneous buoyant-displacement gas release events (BDGREs) and provide for ongoing safe storage of the waste. The current mission plan for future waste transfers assumes a relaxed set of BDGRE controls for selected wastes and DSTs based on a new experimental finding that shows relatively low gas retention for sediment materials that are sufficiently strong (shear strengths greater than about 1000 Pa). Based on these relaxed controls, waste from additional SSTs could be retrieved and transferred to DSTs while still avoiding the potential for BDGREs.The purpose of this study is to summarize and analyze the key previous experiment that forms the basis for the relaxed controls and to summarize progress and results on new experiments focused on understanding the conditions that result in low gas retention. The previous large-scale test used about 50 m 3 of sediment, which would be unwieldy for doing multiple parametric experiments. Accordingly, experiments began with smaller-scale tests to determine whether the desired mechanisms can be studied without the difficulty of conducting very large experiments.The previous large-scale gas retention test was conducted in a 3.5 m diameter test vessel with a sediment layer about 5 m deep. The average retained-gas volume fraction grew over a 25 day period to a peak value of about 7% and then decreased to about 5%. This is much lower than in previous small-scale tests.A key objective for the current gas-retention tests is to conduct tests that have slower gas generation rates and are larger than the previous small-scale tests. In the current study, small-scale tests were conducted with various mixtures of kaolin clay and Min-U-Sil 30 ®1 , which is finely ground silica with a median diameter of about 8 microns, in primarily 12.7 cm diameter test vessels with gas generation provided either by the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide to form oxygen bubbles or by the corrosion of iron to form hydrogen bubbles. The gas generation rates varied and resulted in gas retention that peaked after about 1 to 10 days. The volumes of retained gas and total generated gas were measured over time to determine the retained-gas fraction. Tests we...

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