Pretreatment Engineering Platform Phase 1 Final Test Report

Kurath, Dean E.; Hanson, Brady D.; Minette, Michael J.; Baldwin, David L.; Rapko, Brian M.; Mahoney, Lenna A.; Schonewill, Philip P.; Daniel, Richard C.; Eslinger, Paul W.; Huckaby, J.L.; Billing, Justin M.; Sundar, Parameshwaran S.; Josephson, Gary B.; Toth, James J.; Yokuda, Satoru T.; Baer, Ellen BK; Barnes, Steven; Golovich, Elizabeth C.; Rassat, Scot D.; Brown, Christopher F.; Geeting, John Gh; Sevigny, Gary J.; Casella, Amanda J.; Bontha, Jagannadha R.; Aaberg, R.L.; Aker, Pamela M.; Guzman-Leong, Consuelo E.; Kimura, Marcia L.; Sundaram, S. K.; Pires, Richard P.; Wells, Beric E.

doi:10.2172/970760

Cited by 18 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…The EFRT identified 17 major issues, including issue M12-that neither the caustic leaching nor the oxidative leaching processes planned for the WTP Pretreatment Facility had been demonstrated at greater than bench scale. To address M12, ORP and WTP developed a pilot-scale leaching and ultrafiltration facility and demonstrated the effectiveness of the leaching and ultrafiltration processes (Kurath et al 2009). In advance of and to support the pilot-scale demonstration of these leaching processes, eight waste types were identified, existing waste samples were selected and composited to obtain actual waste composites that would represent these eight waste groups, and extensive laboratory testing was conducted on the composites.…”

Section: Effect Of Pretreatment Processes On Waste Parameter Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

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: Effect Of Pretreatment Processes On Waste Parameter Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Hanford Waste Physical and Rheological Properties: Data and Gaps

Wells¹,

Kurath²,

Mahoney³

et al. 2011

Self Cite

103

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“…Results from these tests pertinent to the mixing of suspended particles are summarized. Mixing results from the cohesive poly-dispersed simulant of Kurath et al (2009) are considered as well.…”

Section: Wtp Pjm Testsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Cohesive Particle Interactions on Solids Uniformity and Mobilization During Jet Mixing: Testing Recommendations

Gauglitz¹,

Wells²,

Bamberger³

et al. 2010

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Executive SummaryRadioactive waste that is currently stored in large underground tanks at the Hanford Site will be staged in selected double-shell tanks (DSTs) and then transferred to the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP). Before being transferred, the waste will be mixed, sampled, and characterized to determine if the waste composition meets the waste feed specifications. Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) is conducting a Tank Mixing and Sampling Demonstration Program to determine the mixing effectiveness of the current baseline mixing system that uses two jet mixer pumps to mobilize and mix waste in DSTs and to determine the adequacy of the planned sampling method. The overall purpose of the demonstration program is to mitigate the technical risk associated with the mixing and sampling systems meeting the feed certification requirements for transferring waste to the WTP.A critical aspect of meeting the feed certification requirements is ensuring that the collected samples will adequately represent the contents of the tank and that all batches of transferred waste are sufficiently uniform so that they all are equivalent to the characterized samples. However, the tank waste contains slurries of solid particles that settle and may become progressively more concentrated towards the bottom of the tank. Obtaining a perfectly uniform distribution of waste in the DSTs with a mixing system may not be possible. To determine how close this ideal can be approached, the expected performance of the DST mixing and sampling systems must be quantified. There have been a number of laboratory studies and full-scale tank farm studies that evaluated mixing behavior; these studies are discussed later in this report. However, these studies do not provide adequate quantitative information to evaluate the performance of the planned sampling and the batch uniformity. Accordingly, WRPS' demonstration program is focusing specifically on quantifying the uniformity of samples and batch transferred material to reduce the technical risk associated with these systems.The first phase of the demonstration program is to conduct scaled tests that appropriately match fullscale behavior and to evaluate sampling methodologies and the uniformity of batch transfers. The initial scaled testing will use non-cohesive particles where the particles do not have cohesive interactions that would cause the particles to stick together. The purpose of this report is to analyze existing data and evaluate whether scaled mixing tests with cohesive simulants are needed to meet the overall objectives of the small-scale mixing demonstration program. This evaluation will focus on estimating the role of cohesive particle interactions on various physical phenomena that occur in parts of the mixing process. A specific focus of the evaluation will be on the uniformity of suspended solids in the mixed region.The evaluation shows that cohesive particle interaction will have multiple effects through a number of different mechanisms. Some of the effects ...

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“…This simulant was developed to target the mid-range of the PSDs based on a range of PSDs from a number of actual waste samples. (Kurath et al 2009) Solids loading was adjusted to meet target Bingham yield stresses of 6 and 30 Pa Non-Newtonian slurries A summary of the measured physical and rheological properties is shown in Table S.4. The simulant identifier in the first column is discussed in the previous paragraph with the -8 and -20 indicating the target solids loading with units of wt% undissolved solids (UDS).…”

Section: S4 Simulant Usementioning

confidence: 99%

“…More detail about size and flow-curve measurements methods can be found in Sections E.1.2.3 and E.1.2.4 of Kurath et al (2009). 5.1…”

Section: Sample Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Small-Scale Spray Releases: Orifice Plugging Test Results

Mahoney¹,

Gauglitz²,

Blanchard³

et al. 2012

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One of the events postulated in the hazard analysis at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) and other U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear facilities, is a breach in process piping that produces aerosols with droplet sizes in the respirable range. The current approach for predicting the size and concentration of aerosols produced in a spray leak involves extrapolating from correlations published in the literature. These correlations are based on results obtained from small engineered spray nozzles using pure liquids with Newtonian fluid behavior. The narrow ranges of physical properties on which the correlations are based do not cover the wide range of slurries and viscous materials present in the WTP and across processing facilities in the DOE complex.Two key technical areas were identified where testing results were needed to improve the technical basis by reducing the uncertainty introduced by extrapolating existing literature results. The first technical need was to quantify the role of slurry particles in small breaches in which the slurry particles may plug and result in substantially reduced, or even negligible, respirable fraction formed by high-pressure sprays. The second technical need was to determine the aerosol droplet size distribution and volume from prototypic breaches and fluids, specifically including sprays from larger breaches with slurries where data from the literature are largely absent.To address these technical areas, small-and large-scale test stands were constructed and operated with simulants to determine the aerosol release fractions and aerosol generation rates from a range of breach sizes and geometries. The properties of the simulants represented the range of properties expected in the WTP process streams and included water, sodium salt solutions, slurries containing boehmite or gibbsite, and a hazardous chemical simulant. The effect of anti-foam agents (AFA) was assessed with most of the simulants. Orifices included round holes and rectangular slots. Much of the testing was conducted at pressures of 200 and 380 psi, but some tests were conducted at 100 psi. Testing the largest postulated breaches was deemed impractical because of the much larger flow rates and equipment that would be required.The purpose of the study described in this report is to provide experimental data for the first key technical area, potential plugging of small breaches, by performing small-scale tests with a range of orifice sizes and orientations representative of the WTP conditions. The simulants used were chosen to represent the range of process stream properties in the WTP. Testing conducted after the plugging tests in the small-and large-scale test stands addresses the second key technical area, aerosol generation. The results of the small-scale aerosol generation tests are included in Mahoney et al. (2012). The area of spray generation from large breaches is covered by large-scale testing in Schonewill et al. (2012). S.1 Objective S.2 Results and Performance Against Success Criteria...

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Pretreatment Engineering Platform Phase 1 Final Test Report

Cited by 18 publications

References 14 publications

Hanford Waste Physical and Rheological Properties: Data and Gaps

Hanford Waste Physical and Rheological Properties: Data and Gaps

The Role of Cohesive Particle Interactions on Solids Uniformity and Mobilization During Jet Mixing: Testing Recommendations

Small-Scale Spray Releases: Orifice Plugging Test Results

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